Paterson (2016)

PATERSON  (2016) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jim Jarmusch
    Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Rizwan Manji,
    Barry Shabaka Henley, William Jackson Harper
A week in the life of a bus driver, starring Adam Driver as a guy named Paterson, who navigates the streets of Paterson, New Jersey, picking up and dropping off , and writing poetry in a notebook he always carries on the side. A lot of the movie is just his day-to-day routine - really a series of rituals - from the time he wakes up (always between 6:11 and 6:28) to his morning bowl of Cheerios, the small talk with his supervisor at the start of his shift, the conversations he overhears from behind the wheel, the exchanges at home with his wife (a self-styled artist who he loves to the point of martyrdom), and finally a nightly walk with the dog and a nightly beer at the neighborhood bar. Get up the next day and repeat. Still, a lot can happen in a week, nothing to alter the course of world events, maybe, but crucial in the life of a Paterson, New Jersey, bus driver, and the movie's about that stuff, too. Jim Jarmusch might not be the only filmmaker who would dream up a movie like this, but he is the only one who would make this movie. He's the deadpan master of the silent pause, the quiet spaces in conversations, or between conversations, where nothing's being said. Any other director would cut away from those spaces. Jarmusch wants to see what's going on there, even if it's nothing, so he sticks around. He's been doing this for over 30 years, and while the style's not much different from what he's done before, the effect here seems more personal and intimate, not just showing you what a Jim Jarmusch movie typically looks like, but suggesting what it might feel like to live in one. Keep an eye out for the twins.