Paterson

It took us a while but we finally got around to seeing this movie, at home on DVD from our public library. As others have commented this is a very satisfying movie but difficult to explain why.

Adam Driver is really very authentic as Paterson, and he lives in Paterson, NJ. He is intelligent but quiet, every weekday he gets up a little after 6AM, eats his small bowl of Cheerios, and walks with his lunch to his job as a municipal bus driver. Golshifteh Farahani (of Iranian heritage) is his happy wife Laura who likes to decorate everything white and black, her home, her clothes, the curtains, even her cupcakes.

The story starts on a Monday morning and ends the next Monday morning. In between we see Paterson's daily life, his hidden passion is writing poetry in a little book he carries around with him. A punctual man he arrives to work early and sits in his bus, writing, until he is given the signal to start his route.

These are not your usual "Roses are red and violets are blue" type of poem, instead they are the thoughtful, non-rhyming sort, "Today I made my own sandwich, it gives me great pleasure to do so, I can let my wife sleep late" type of poem, although that is not one of them.

The movie is just a character study of a gentle and honest man just finding his own path through life, one week at a time. The script and situations also provide an appropriate amount of humor.

Greetings again from the darkness. Do you find poetry in everyday life? What about poets … do you envision loners whose lives are filled with angst and suffering? Our lead character here is a pretty normal guy who drives a city bus, has a happy marriage, and walks his dog each evening. He's also a poet – and a pretty interesting one.

Writer/director Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers, 2005) often seems like he is making films for his circle of friends … all whom must be much cooler than you and me. This time, however, he takes an opposite approach and brilliantly focuses on a dude that any of us could know. Paterson (Adam Driver) is a New Jersey Transit bus driver who writes poetry based on his observations of life's seemingly minor details (his first poem notes "We have plenty of matches in our house").

You should be forewarned: there are no murders, kidnappings, bank robberies or shootouts. Things move rather deliberately. Also missing are any special effects – heck, Adam Driver even got licensed to drive a bus for the role. Instead, we are forced to slow down and see each of the seven days of a week through the eyes and words of Paterson. He observes. He listens. He people watches. He then commits his thoughts to the page and recites them for our benefit. Sometimes he is eavesdropping on bus passengers, while other times he curiously tries to figure out the newest "dream" for his beloved wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani). Having the soul of an artist, Laura cloaks her world in a geometric black and white color scheme while energetically bounding from cupcakes to country and western music to cooking as she pursues her place in life.

There are many Jarmusch touches throughout. Paterson the poet actually lives and works in Paterson, New Jersey … yep, Paterson from Paterson. The interactions at the neighborhood bar (run by Barry Shabaka Henley) are simultaneously real and surreal – right down to the wall of local fame (including Hurricane Carter and Lou Costello, but no mention of Larry Doby). Coincidences abound. A young girl recites her poem to Paterson … her writing style, personal book, and delivery make her seem like his poetic doppelganger – all while the recurring appearance of numerous sets of twins make us believe in the law of attraction. Lastly, the closest thing to a villain in the film is Paterson's bulldog Marvin, in what plays like a love-hate relationship with the mailbox being center-ring.

Another local Paterson (the city) aspect is Paterson's (the poet) admiration of the works of William Carlos Williams, a poet whose style he emulates. One of the terrific scenes near the end involves a spontaneous interaction between Paterson and town visitor (Masatoshi Nagase) that takes place next to The Great Falls, and serves as a reminder that we should accept who we are, no matter the challenges or lack of glory. This is truly director Jarmusch's ode to the artist/poet in each of us and in ordinary life. Creating art as best we can is a very personal thing, and for some it's a need - while for others it's one of life's simple pleasures. Regardless, a "normal" life with daily routines is not to be scorned, but rather embraced, should you be so fortunate. If you doubt this, Paterson asks, "Would you rather be a fish?" **NOTE: sharp moviegoer eyes will recognize Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman, who both had their debut in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

I decided to watch this film because of two friends who claimed they did not understand what is happening and that they did not know how to watch a movie. I saw the and the answer is simple. In fact, the answer is in the movie itself!

If you are a fan of William Carlos Williams or a fan of Archibald McLeish (both poets), then the answer is throughout the film. Unlike many of today's films, this one celebrates the essence of a film by just being a film. McLeish offers an answer in his poem, "Ars Poetica" where he asserts a poem does not "mean," it simply is.

Williams also offers an answer in his works: there is an inherent value in the the "thingness of things" whether it is the bowl of plums reference in this film or in the red wheelbarrow.

What Jarmush has given us is an excellent example of what these two poets told us years ago: there is value in the small and simple things of life. That is all this film is about and we are told, point blank, at the end of the movie: the Japanese poet asks Paterson if he, too, is a poet. Paterson says, no; he is only a bus driver. The Japanese poet says, "This could be a poem by William Carlos Williams."

And, indeed, that is what we have just seen.

I'm not sure if Jim Jarmusch ("Only Lovers Left Alive") in Paterson wants to make America great again by giving us his vision of the way it used to be, or is telling us that we only have to look around us to discover that it's great right now. Performed by a brilliantly authentic Adam Driver ("Midnight Special"), Paterson is not only the name of the city in New Jersey known for its resident poet William Carlos Williams, but is also his name. He is a poet whose Haiku-like verses (actually written by Ron Padgett) are reminiscent of the city's own poet William Carlos Williams. He writes a new poem every day (or finishes an old one) on the #23 bus he drives before and during his trip. Though his loving, energetic, somewhat scattered wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani, "Finding Altamira") keeps asking him to make copies of them, he resists the idea, preferring to keep them in his secret notebook.

The film has little conflict, family dysfunction, or mental health issues. It is about what works and even (wonder of wonders) about a marriage that is not falling apart. Like most people with jobs and families, Paterson has a daily routine. There's too much variation in his day to call it a takeoff on Groundhog Day, but it does have that "same old, same old" quality. He awakes shortly after 6am, has a bowl of cereal that looks suspiciously like Cheerios, walks to his job driving the #23 bus through the streets of Paterson, listening in on conversations (often with a broad smile on his face) of passengers who talk about anything from Italian anarchists to boxer Hurricane Carter and comedian Lou Costello.

He comes home at six, corrects a leaning mailbox that moves daily thanks to his grumpy English bulldog Marvin (RIP), has dinner (some on the exotic side) talks with Laura who fills him in on the many projects she has going on including painting black and white circles on draperies, learning to play the guitar, and making cupcakes to sell at the local farmers market. He then takes Marvin for a walk and goes for a beer at the local pub where he chats with the owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley, "Carrie"), and often acts as a moderator between Everett (William Jackson Harper, "True Story"), a dramatic actor who desperately wants to reunite with his ex-wife Maria (Chasten Harmon.

The poems that Paterson reads as the words are flashed on the screen are not about odes to nightingales (though there's nothing wrong with that) but about down-to-earth things, such as one about matches, inspired by Ohio Blue Tip matchboxes that have disappeared from our lives. In "The Run," he says, "I go through trillions of molecules that move aside to make way for me while on both sides trillions more stay where they are. The windshield wiper blade starts to squeak. The rain has stopped. I stop. On the corner a boy in a yellow raincoat holding his mother's hand." In other poems he lets the world know how much he is in love with his wife, though he confides in us that he occasionally looks at other woman, something which as far as I know is still legal.

To Paterson, a poem should be simple and direct and he is moved by one such poem by a 9-year-old girl who recites it to him while she is waiting for her mother and sister. He complements her on her poem about a waterfall, remembering a few lines and reciting them to Laura when he gets home. Contrary to most films where, except for films about wealthy financial elites, work does not play a big role in the life of the characters, Paterson makes real what daily living is about for a majority of working people. The film has warmth and humor wrapped in a portrait of a city which has seen better days, a city in which Jarmusch creates a structure of closely observed small moments revealed with empathy.

Paterson is a man who is not looking for life to give him satisfaction but who brings satisfaction to it, a man who knows that satisfaction does not depend on accumulating things but in being grounded in who you are and what you can bring to the world. He comes to appreciate that poetry is not extraneous to life but that life itself is poetry. Although the film presents an idealistic picture of a city without visible slums, drugs, and crime which we know exists, Jarmusch may be providing us with a welcome counterpoint, showing us the way our cities should be and can be again.

Paterson is a character driven joy to watch and see. I felt as if I was watching reality programming about characters that you can not help but root for. I became emotionally invested in the first 15 minutes and by films end was concerned for and gave a damn about all of their outcomes.

The theme of the film is the poetry in everyday life that surrounds us. The triumph's and setbacks faced by real people and how they deal with the obstacle's that get in the way of aspirations and dreams. A breath of fresh air from films where the stakes and risks are larger than life itself. Paterson is a journey in the life of the main character his charming and spontaneous girlfriend and her territorial but one of a kind dog Marvin.(One of the greatest movie dogs of all time!) Paterson is not a generic "feel good" movie but I felt great having seen it!