Reviews

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  ★★★★★ review by josh lewis on Letterboxd

  "[there's] always another day, right?"

  a soft, relaxing ode to the brave act of getting out of bed every morning, and continuing to find your own avenues of creativity, love and support in a world that doesn’t hand you any. practically radical in its insistence on a simple, quiet, warm existence where everyone in the american working class is striving, creating and loving despite everything else trying to confine them. your first and last piece of art is the life you live—monumental, highly doubt there will be a better movie this year.

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  ★★★★ review by Lucy on Letterboxd

  some day i hope i can be this content and in love

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  ★★★★★ review by Katie on Letterboxd

  this movie is all I want out of this beautiful but short life

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  ★★★★ review by Mike D'Angelo on Letterboxd

  73/100

  Second viewing, no change. Still love everything except the one big, heavily foreshadowed plot element. Three small moments/observations that stood out this time (As Seen On Twitter™):

  1. Paterson puts his clothes out every night, presumably so that he doesn't wake Laura in the morning opening drawers. Nothing is ever made of this; escaped me completely the first time. But it says so much about him.

  2. Love the loud, mysterious clacking sound in the bar, which turns out to be a '90s-style jukebox with CDs in giant platters (with artwork attached) that you flip to browse.

  3. OMFG the look of proud anticipation on the little girl's face just before she reads Paterson the final line of her poem ("Most people call it rain"). The essence of creativity in a single facial expression.

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  ★★★★★ review by DirkH on Letterboxd

  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
  
  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
  
  - Ode on a Grecian Urn
  
  Keats

  With simplicity we can say the most complex things. I am convinced that this is a singular and universal truth. I've always considered it an artist's burden to chip away at the ugly reality and find the beautiful truth hidden behind it.

  The world is, essentially, an awful place, but life isn't. Or shouldn't be.

  But life more often than not gets bullied to the background and we need brilliant people like Jim Jarmusch to remind us of who we are. Or should be. Or can be.

  Through Driver's absurdly overlooked, stellar performance, Jarmusch writes a poem that, like poems should, lifts the veil for just a bit, showing us the beautiful truth that made me look around and see my life surrounding me.

  And it was beautiful.

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