Jim Jarmusch makes a bus driver’s working week absorbing, funny and unexpectedly comforting. Adam Driver gives the quiet stretches plenty to watch, though Laura deserves more than the affectionate sketch Golshifteh Farahani is asked to fill out.
Paterson is absorbing, quietly funny and worth an unhurried evening. Jim Jarmusch, who writes and directs, follows a bus driver who writes poems through a week in Paterson, New Jersey. Work, marriage and writing each deserve the man’s attention, and the film takes all three seriously. Anyone waiting for the job to become unbearable, or the poetry to become a ticket out, will need to adjust to a story interested in why he might be content.
Adam Driver makes listening an activity worth watching. His Paterson seems to be taking things in even when there is little for him to say, and his concentration never becomes a display of sensitivity. The poems let us hear some of what occupies him, but the performance leaves room for reserve and humour. We believe that this man can drive a bus, enjoy his marriage and write without regarding the first two as obstacles to the third.
The verses appear on screen as Paterson reads them aloud, giving the words time to be read as well as heard. We felt ourselves relax during these passages, because the film allowed us to follow a thought without hurrying towards the next incident. Editor Affonso Gonçalves keeps the returning routines from feeling like a recap: there is time to recognise the familiar activity and notice a small difference. The pace asks for attention, but the repetitions give us enough to attend to.
Frederick Elmes gives the daily surroundings a sunny warmth that suits Paterson’s pleasure in them. The photography keeps familiar places inviting through repeated visits, without needing a dramatic change of light to renew our interest. Mark Friedberg’s production design makes the domestic world feel worth returning to, with a homespun character that belongs to this couple. The music by Carter Logan and Jim Jarmusch fits the unhurried pace without making the poetry feel like a recital demanding hushed respect.
Golshifteh Farahani has a harder assignment as Laura. Her warmth makes the couple’s happiness persuasive, but the writing gives us less reason to linger over her thoughts than over his. That imbalance matters in a film asking us to take an interest in the people around its hero. We wanted a little more time with Laura on her own terms, rather than another reason to admire how gently Paterson moves through his life.
There is also a little too much satisfaction in the film’s own quaintness. Some of the verse is slight, and the attention paid to it can make an ordinary observation feel overvalued. The reaction shots of the dog are another small pleasure that gets more encouragement than it needs. These are modest complaints about a film that avoids a familiar weakness of stories about artists: treating paid employment as an inconvenience to be overcome before the interesting work can begin.
At 118 minutes, this needs a willingness to stay with small variations in familiar days. We would not choose it for an evening when we wanted brisk plotting; the pleasure lies in having time to notice what occupies this man. Give it enough quiet to hear the words and watch Adam Driver listening. There is no need to arrive with an interest in poetry; a little curiosity about other people’s days will do.
