Movie Review - Paterson

Paterson (2016)

Starring Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, and Barry Shabaka Henley

Directed by Jim Jarmusch

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Paterson is very much a "day in the life" movie.  For a week, we follow the titular character (Adam Driver) as he wakes up at 6:15am, kisses his creative, yet overly ambitious wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), walks to the Paterson, New Jersey, bus depot where he drives a city bus until 5pm when he walks home, eats dinner, and then walks his wife's dog to the local bar where he chats up the elderly owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley) as he drinks his singular beer and then goes home.  This same pattern unfolds across the movie's two hours with minor changes that create just enough change to make Paterson's life feel different despite falling into the same old routine day in-day out.  It's a wonder that the film can sustain the audience's attention, but somehow writer-director Jim Jarmusch succeeds as I never found myself bored despite the very obvious fact that I so easily could have been.

Initially, Adam Driver's Paterson did seem like a bit of an emotionless blank slate, tired of his day-to-day routine or perhaps a bit defeated that this is the life that he has been destined to live.  While that admittedly doesn't change a whole lot as the film progresses, we do see sparks of life in part thanks to Paterson's love of poetry which allows him (and the audience) to see his mundane world in a different, more nuanced light.  Driver has some subtle moments here that give his dry character spark and verve and it's in those moments that we appreciate Driver's decision to highlight the typically humdrum nature of Paterson even more -- when we see those pivotal emotional moments, they end up resonating even more.

Paterson will not be for everyone.  It is a rather mellow film that doesn't have big story or character arcs, but for some reason, at 1am in the morning, this one worked for me which, I must admit, was quite a surprise.  I was fully expecting to turn it off about thirty minutes in, but somehow, I found myself drawn in to the mundanity of it all which is quite a surprise for me.

The RyMickey Rating:  B