Adam Driver (Silence, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens) hasn’t been the most endearing character early in his career. It’s not entirely his fault, though, and Jim Jarmusch’s (Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes) has given me a new appreciation for him. The first movies I saw starring Driver were movies I absolutely abhorred (This Is Where I Leave You, While We’re Young), and my reason for disliking these so much wasn’t because of him, but because of the characters, he portrayed. Even in movies like Silence and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I was not overly invested in his characters. He annoyed me in Star Wars more than anything else. He clearly played second fiddle to Andrew Garfield in Silence, a movie in which his more talented counterpart completely overshadowed Driver. Paterson has opened my eyes to his depth as an actor and, really in just the fifth movie that I’ve seen him in (I do not recall his performance at all in Inside Llewyn Davis, Lincoln, or Midnight Special), he proves to be relatable to and not someone who I find to be annoying.

Paterson is one of the simplest movies I’ve ever seen. I think many moviegoers would find it to be incredibly dull. But I think a person who views movies more as art than entertainment will be able to acknowledge their merits. I’m tentative to use Wes Anderson here because I do not enjoy his movies, but this movie seems similar in its simplistic tone. And Paterson has some of the same quirkiness that movies like Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, or The Darjeeling Limited. The difference was that the quirkiness wasn’t so absurd that it made the movie utterly unrealistic and, frankly, stupid. Instead, there was a subtly to Paterson that I found to be charming. And there is believability in its characters. So even though there wasn’t much of a story here and nothing really happened, I felt like the film was an enchanting ride that followed the lead character Paterson (Driver) during a week in his life.

Paterson is a city bus driver living and working in, of all places, Paterson, New Jersey. So he’s literally driving a bus with his name plastered on the side of it. Driving a bus is just his day job, though. When he’s not driving the bus, he’s often writing poetry. He writes poetry in the driver’s seat of his bus before his shift starts. He writes in the park while he is eating lunch. He writes in his basement while he is at home. As an aside, a couple of things about his poetry…1) He seemingly has been writing every day for several years, yet his poems are all contained within a single small notebook….you’d think he would have filled it up by now, but it still looks like he’s just a few pages into it 2) He doesn’t back up his poems which, as a writer myself, is just something you don’t do because of the ease it is to back up and the despair you’d go into if something happened to your poems 3) Perhaps it was just me, but I didn’t think he was a very good writer. His poems referenced the events around him in society and the people he encountered in his life, whether through those he knows personally or through conversations he hears from passengers on his bus. I can appreciate a simplistic poem, but for an individual who knows a lot about the subject and whose influences are the likes of Emily Dickenson and William Carlos Williams, I expected something of a bit more substance. Over the course of the movie, we see him write close to a dozen poems, and I just wasn’t impressed. Now he was encouraged to share his poems and that he was such a great poet (mostly by his wife Laura, who I will discuss momentarily), but I don’t think we ever see anybody read one of his poems or hear him read a poem to affirm his talent. In fact, we met a 10-year-old girl recite a poem that she’s just written to Paterson at one point in the film, and it has more symbolism and meaning than anything he’s written.

I’m not sure how the quality, or lack thereof, of his poetry, relates to other components of this movie, but I felt it interesting that we have this bus driver who is this poet or this poet who is a bus driver, and both seem to be average at what they do. I understand the part about the bus driver. I mean, how good can be or not be at driving a bus in a simple town like Paterson. I’m not knocking the bus driver profession, but it seems like a profession that you can’t really improve upon or get worse at all that much. Like in the technology sector, you can get ahead if you keep up with current technologies, and you can quickly become obsolete if you do not. I guess with being a bus driver that you could get more challenging routes? But if you don’t get in accidents or violations, you show up to work every day with a positive attitude, and you get your passengers to where they need to get to on time, you’re probably doing a pretty good job. Is Paterson more than a bus driver? There are dreamers out there (whether it be a poet, a singer, a dancer, etc.) who are just waiting to be discovered. Paterson doesn’t seem to be a dreamer. That motivation just isn’t there. And that’s perfectly okay. Writing for him is just a hobby. That’s fine. As mentioned earlier, we follow a week with Paterson from Monday morning to Sunday night. We start with each morning

As mentioned earlier, we follow a week with Paterson from Monday morning to Sunday night. We start with each morning with him and his wife in bed. He naturally wakes up each morning between about 6:10 and 6:30. In fact, I believe the first two days he woke up at like 6:12 and 6:10, so when he wakes up at around 6:30 on Wednesday, the audience kind of gasps, believing that he is late. It’s a little humorous. The audience is looking for some conflict or drama because that’s what they expect in a movie like this. But that’s just not the type of movie that this is. This is a glimpse into a man’s life that has no drama. He eats cereal out of a cup. He walks to work. He drives a bus. He eats out of a lunchbox that has a different picture of his wife in it every day. He drives the bus some more. He walks home. He eats his wife’s recipe of the day for dinner. The couple talks and spends quiet time on the couch. He takes his dog Marvin for a walk. He ties Marvin up outside of his favorite bar. He has exactly one drink. He goes home.

Paterson is a likable man and is liked by all in his life. Whether it be his busybody shift supervisor at work who enjoys unloading his life’s burdens on Paterson or his bartender Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley – State of Play, Collateral), a laid back older gentleman who has seen it all in his years of tending bar or Everett (William Jackson Harper – All Good Things) a likable enough patron who is having difficulty coming to terms with the woman who he had been seeing, everyone enjoys having Paterson in his life. But no one appreciates him more, nor is there anyone who he more appreciates than his charismatic wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani – Rosewater, Eden). Laura is the perfect counterpart for Paterson’s evenness. She is outgoing, full of energy, willing to experiment, and wears her emotions on her sleeve. Whereas Paterson just likes writing poetry, Laura is a painter one day, an interior designer the designer, a cupcake entrepreneur the one after that, and an aspiring musician the one after that. She’s all over the place, and he loves her because of it.

The highlight of this film was the way that Driver portrayed Paterson. He was a peaceful man. He had no ego. There was nothing that set him off. He wasn’t troubled. He had a job that he was satisfied with. He had a wife that he adored. He had a hobby that he loved. He had his routine. Some might call that boring. For others, they might enjoy the simplicity of such a life. For Paterson, this was a life that worked for him. There was no conflict in this movie. There were no bad guys. Nothing really happened. Yet, it fascinated me because it felt so real and movies that feel real to me are the ones I enjoy the most these days. If I can relate to a movie on any level, it’s likely to get a positive review from me. And a lot of that is because of the many movies that are being released these days that I cannot relate to. Sure the occasional superhero movie is great, but how is a guy like me supposed to relate to Captain America or Superman. Sure, there are characters like Ironman whose inner turmoil I can understand, and when a character plays it with the depth of Rober Downey Jr., it makes the movie less a superhero movie. But those are fewer and far in between. And science fiction or fantasy movies can also be great, but so much belief has to be suspended, and many of these movies follow the same mold. So when a movie like Paterson comes around where I look at any of the characters in the movie and feel like they could be someone in my everyday life, I feel connected to the movie. I don’t need explosions or aliens to be entertained. Many years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say it. And many years ago, I would have laughed at the notion of a movie such as Paterson.

I’m still not entirely what the purpose of Paterson was. I read quite a few reviews, and they take the movie in different directions. But, for me, it was one of those movies that I could just sit back and appreciate its simplicity while believing that a person with such a simple life such as this movie’s lead could be as content as he was. It’s hard to recommend this movie to most people, but if you enjoy a movie like Everything Must Go, Away We Go, or Jeff Who Lives at Home, Paterson would be a good movie to give a shot.

Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 7/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 7.5/10
Sound 8.5/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
78.5%