Paterson

Paterson (2016) covers a week in the life of a bus driver in New Jersey who writes poetry. Paterson wakes at the same time every day, eats the same breakfast, drives the same route, walks the dog in the evening and stops at the same bar for one beer. His wife Laura is always starting something new: baking, learning guitar, painting the house in black and white patterns. He writes his poems in a notebook and shows nobody. They appear on screen and are read aloud; he writes about ordinary things, and writes a love poem about a box of matches. The idea is repetition. Seven days pass almost identically and the small differences carry all the meaning: a conversation overheard on the bus, an argument in the bar, a child met in the street. There is no crisis. There is one, and it comes at the end; something is lost and the character does not react the way you expect. Ron Padgett wrote the poems; he is a real poet and most of the texts in the film are his. The title is both the character's name and the city's. Paterson is the subject of William Carlos Williams's long poem of the same name, and the film keeps recalling that connection. Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani star. Jim Jarmusch directed. A dog is the most important supporting character. It runs 118 minutes. Good for: quiet cinema, poetry, and accounts of everyday life. Less good for: nothing happens and the repetition will bore some viewers.