Paterson (2016)

Paterson has a routine. He wakes up between 6 and 6:30 next to his beautiful girlfriend (who continues sleeping), eats cereal at the kitchen counter, walks to work, writes a bit of poetry in his notebook, starts up the bus he drives, eavesdrops on riders' conversations, eats lunch, drives some more, walks home, straightens the perpetually leaning mailbox in front of his tiny house, eats the dinner prepared by his girlfriend while giving an ear to her latest aspiration and/or complimenting her newest art project, takes the dog for a walk, and stops off at the local pub for his one beer on the way home.

I liked Paterson. A lot. But I didn't like his silly girlfriend and I got the feeling that he didn't like her as much as he thought he did, either. Maybe I was just projecting; I mean, she obviously wanted to please him and encouraged him in his poetry and expressed pride in him, all of which were reciprocated. But there was something that made me feel as though he was viewing her as more of an exotic pet than as an equal. I saw her as basically the second coming of Fabienne -- Bruce Willis' girlfriend in Pulp Fiction -- but with several hobbies. His feedback to her was always one of patience rather than true admiration or even annoyance. He seemed to experience a deeper connection with two fellow poets met by chance: a young girl he stops to keep company as she waits for her mother and a Japanese tourist who joins him on a bench.

There is beauty in Paterson's world, to be sure -- but I wished that he had a partner with whom he could truly share that beauty.

B-