Golshifteh Farahani makes quiet companionship worth watching. We value the warmth and restraint she brings to Paterson, while wishing its writing gave Laura as much attention as the man she lives with.
Fi1m perspective
In Paterson (2016), Golshifteh Farahani makes Laura's happiness with Adam Driver's bus driver persuasive. She brings warmth to their scenes without making the couple seem to be performing contentment for our benefit. We found their life together unexpectedly comforting, because her affection gives us reason to believe that these two enjoy each other's company. It is a modest-sounding achievement, but a film built around a working week needs precisely that sort of conviction.
Her work has moved between films with rather different demands: the Iranian debut The Pear Tree (1998), Ridley Scott's Body of Lies (2008), her first major international role, and Asghar Farhadi's About Elly (2009). The Patience Stone (2012) asks her to sustain extended monologues, a much more exposed assignment than playing an intimate partnership. She can hold such a film together, though the most intense passages do not always have the force they need.
The difficulty with Laura is different: Farahani is doing enough, and the writing is not. Jim Jarmusch asks us to notice the people around his hero, yet gives her less space for her own thoughts than he gives Driver. Her energy helps keep that imbalance from making the relationship feel false, but it cannot give Laura the fuller part she deserves. We want to spend time with her on her own terms, and too often she supplies another reason to admire Paterson's gentle life. That reservation matters even in a film we recommend warmly.
In Extraction (2020), she plays Nik Khan alongside Chris Hemsworth, bringing physical commitment without losing the character in the action. That is useful evidence against treating her only as an actor of quiet feeling, or mistaking Laura's underwritten part for a limit on what Farahani can offer. Start with Paterson, but allow yourself to wish it would occasionally leave the bus driver behind.
Biography
Golshifteh Farahani (also credited as Rahavard Farahani) is an Iranian actress born on 10 July 1983 in Tehran. She began acting in theatre at the age of six and made her film debut at fourteen in The Pear Tree (1998).
Farahani gained recognition in Iranian cinema for roles in films including Half Moon (2006), M for Mother (2006) and About Elly (2009). She became the first Iranian actor in a major Hollywood production with Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies (2008) and has since appeared in international films such as Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), Paterson (2016) as Laura, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), The Upside (2019), Extraction (2020) and its 2023 sequel, and the series Invasion (2021–). She is also cast as Robbie in the forthcoming Matchbox the Movie (2026).
