Paterson

Jim Jarmusch's 2016 film PATERSON is a study of everyday life in a small American city. Its title refers on one hand to its setting of Paterson, New Jersey, much less known abroad than other towns in the state but a surprising number of prominent Americans hailed from there and it was eulogized in an epic-length work by the poet William Carlos Williams. On the other hand, Paterson is coincidentally the last name of our protagonist, a thirty-something bus driver played by Adam Driver. The film is a day-by-day account of one week in Paterson's life and in fact each day is rather the same: Paterson wakes up, kisses his wife (played by Golshifteh Farahani), goes to work driving the bus, comes home, eats dinner with his wife, takes the dog for a walk, and has a beer at the local bar. Yet Paterson also has an unusual hobby: for some time he has written poetry during each day's lunch break, and he has filled a small notebook with poems that his wife calls wonderful, but which he has never shown to anyone else. There is a plot to Paterson, that is, an increasing of tension and a sudden and jarring climax, but overall Jarmusch is not aiming for any grand and intricate storytelling here. Instead, he is intentionally trying to capture the quiet music of one ordinary person's existence. Or should I say, two ordinary people's existence, for the film sympathetically captures this couple's marriage. Their relationship is a simple, uncomplicated one of trust and mutual understanding. Paterson is extremely fortunate to have this, as events around him show. (The script is by Sara Driver, Jarmusch's partner of decades, and one might see the film as a hymn to their own special relationship.) Many viewers are likely to find this heartwarming, while other viewers in more fraught marriages might burn with jealousy at Paterson and his wife's incredible harmony. Those familiar with Jarmusch's earlier work know that he has always liked to show a great deal of urban blight before the camera, such as vacant lots overgrown with weeds and graffitied walls. For Jarmusch, these backdrops supposedly served as a counterweight to the typical Hollywood depictions of the USA as all glitz, and it helped to underscore the bohemian qualities of his characters. Yet this blight surprisingly absent here. Paterson, New Jersey is instead shown as a clean and fairly prosperous town. Its residents, regardless of socioeconomic status or race, are depicted as rather content people. In fact, at regular points in the film Jarmusch depicts interactions between whites and African-Americans or between gays and straights as if celebrating our new modern era when all those old divisions don't matter any more. This is definitely the most optimistic film that Jarmusch has ever shot, but this utopian vision does come across as a little heavy-handed and one feels that Jarmusch is overlooking pressing social issues that continue to hold many people back. Watching this film, I couldn't help but protest that this gentrified setting is not all of America, just a privileged few. Still, in spite of the film's flaws, the depiction of married life and the way that poetry is worked into the story is very moving, and I do feel this is worth watching, at least for established Jarmusch fans or those comfortable with indie cinema.