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France, Germany, United States · 2016
Rated R · 1h 58m
Director Jim Jarmusch
Starring Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Henley, Method Man
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance
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A week in the life of a working-class poet named Paterson and his partner Laura—a DIY creative force—as they find inspiration through their daily activities and modest means. This understated dramatic comedy is an imaginative ode to both poetry and the quiet virtue in making art for art's sake, with humility and openness.
Carried by an appropriately low-key Adam Driver and Jarmusch's casual genius for capturing offhand remarks, Paterson is his most absorbing character study since "Broken Flowers" -- and far more grounded in real life. There's no context necessary to recognize it as his most personal work.
Time Out London by Geoff Andrew
Art, the film suggests, is about first noticing then communing with the world around you. In that sense, it’s another wise, wonderful Jarmusch movie about the importance, in this sad and beautiful world, of friendship and love.
The Film Stage by Giovanni Marchini Camia
Like the best poetry, Paterson keeps its meticulous construction hidden, letting its impact sneak up on you unawares. When the final image cuts to black, it triggers an overwhelming surge of emotions that’ll make you want to remain seated in the dark until long after the credits have finished rolling, basking in this marvelous film’s afterglow.
An unfeasibly charming film full of little wisdoms and quiet comforts where we might expect to find provocations, its only deception is that it is so much richer than it seems at first glance.
The whole set-up risks being all too winsome, but Jarmusch has always been a quiet punk: his most radical assertion is believing, despite everything, in the essential goodness of people.
Paterson, Jarmusch’s wee dramatic curio starring Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver – his name is Paterson, and he lives in Paterson — is a movie that’s all too aware of how much it diverges from contemporary tempo. That’s because the entire film is a self-conscious anachronism.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
What a lovely film Paterson is.
Screen International by Tim Grierson
Writer-director Jim Jarmusch often explores existential themes, but they’ve perhaps never been so beautifully unadorned as they are in Paterson, a deceptively modest character piece that’s profound and moving while remaining grounded in the everyday.
How Jarmusch takes this match-stick house of nothings and fills it with such calm and wisdom is a mystery with only one real answer: he’s an artist.
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
Unassuming, idiosyncratic and set in the run-down eponymous New Jersey city that has produced more than its share of noted personalities, this is a mild-mannered, almost startlingly undramatic work that offers discreet pleasures to longtime fans of the New York indie-scene veteran.
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This film seems to me to be the antithesis to a Hollywood "star vehicle", although it is carried by Adam Driver in the lead role. Both Jarmusch's writing and Driver's performance are thoughtful and understated, both executed with the utmost confidence that the human condition is layered and interesting enough to hold the audience's attention. And SQURL contributes a wonderful score that grounds the film.