Paterson (Adam Driver), who boasts the same name as the New Jersey town he lives in, leads what looks to be a most unremarkable life. His job as a fixed-route bus driver, going over the same streets every day at the same time, is by definition not the sort to yield too many surprises.

And at home too, though partner Laura (Golshifteh Farahani)—an artist who often gets a bit obsessed with her black-and-white-themed projects—tends to switch the décor around every now and then, and sometimes gets creative with what she puts on the dinner plate, Paterson has resigned himself to indulging her whims, however outlandish.

And so his days pass very much like clockwork: wake up at 6.15 am, grab a bowl of cereal and coffee, head to work, come home, straighten out that damned mailbox, take the dog for a walk, drink a beer at the local pub before hopping back into bed and doing it all over. Again and again and again.

But—and you wouldn’t necessarily guess it to look at him, nor would he ever tell you himself if he could avoid it—Paterson also writes poetry. And while one would probably expect said poetry to be a repository of long-harboured dissatisfactions to do with the monotony of his existence, or yearnings of escape,the truth is quite the opposite: it is precisely here, in familiar patterns and rhythms,ordinary objects and everyday moments, that he finds inspiration.

Any chance he gets, we find him scribbling unhurriedly in what Laura calls his “secret notebook”, one she has long been after him to show someone, so as to share his work with the world. Paterson, however, just does not feel the need. 

Writer-director Jim Jarmusch, a veritable indie idol whose last outing was the melancholy and captivating 2013 vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive, creates something quietly revolutionary in the new Paterson, an homage to art and the creative process like no other I’ve ever seen.

It’s a film that glories in the mundane, reminding us not to overlook the simple beauty and meaning to be found in the subtle details that make up a life, however dull, however routine it might appear on the surface. Paterson steers clear of drama and exposition in the conventional sense—nothing much happens, and we learn very little about the character’s past or background, really.

But we are transfixed, nonetheless, drawn inexorably into the very routine we might have initially thought of as something to be pitied, and—largely by way of Paterson’s poetry—eventually charmed by the little miracles that pop up when we begin to look hard enough. 

Rather than positing art as this mystical, overly-complex and thereby inaccessible ideal that is the sole luxury of a few Chosen Ones, what Paterson seems to say is that creativity can stem from anywhere, really, and that it need not always be a grand, all-consuming endeavour, but something that can go hand-in-hand with other, more regular, pursuits, perhaps even drawing strength from that regularity.

A definite contrast is being drawn between Laura and Paterson in this regard—she being much closer to what we’re used to seeing artists portrayed as, namely, fascinating eccentrics inclined to strange moods and feverish fancies, and entirely given over to their art, and he, on the other hand, so very cautious and contained.

But—and perhaps Jarmuschhas been a little unfair in his treatment of Laura here—we are made to feel that Paterson’s is the more authentic approach, given how he doesn’t even want to publish his poems, content to keep them locked up in his journal, only for his eyes. 

This reverence towards the act of creating, the journey itself rather than the validation of an eventual product by an audience, is accentuated by a number of visual effects: whenever Paterson enters the zone, for instance, things appear to slow down just a fraction, images laid gently over one another like veils, and words filling the screen as they are conceived, mimicking the pace and movement of the poet’s thoughts.

There are also a number of unexpected surreal touches scattered throughout that serve to give the film a certain enigmatic feel—whether it’s the recurring twin motif or echoes of certain sentences or phrases. That, again, ties back to the overall theme of repetition and overlapping patterns that Jarmusch has based the film’s narrative and structure around.

Credit for Paterson’s success is also, of course, owed to its pitch-perfect leading man. Driver, originally a theatre actor, was relatively unknown until cast in the role of erratic but loveable man-child Adam Sackler in HBO’s Girls, and has since booked a number of memorable supporting gigs including in Inside Llewyn Davis, Hungry Hearts and more recently, the JJ Abrams-helmed Star Wars sequel trilogy.

He is fantastic here as the titular Paterson, serving up an incredibly nuanced, compellingly internalised performance. In fact, the man is so understated that it has the effect (whether intentional or not, I can’t be sure) of making everyone else around him seem affected by comparison, particularly Farahani, whose persistent enthusiasm can ring a bit false. 

Ultimately, what stands out most, what feels most subversive about Paterson, ironically, is its determined non-subversiveness.

It offers a lesson on how deeply-embedded skepticism, perhaps even misanthropy, has become amid film-goers in that it’s actually hard, at least at first, to deal with the sort of optimism that Paterson peddles overall, to accept that what we see is indeed what we’re getting and that there isn’t something terrible lurking under the surface. Indeed, I spent most of the movie tense, worrying over the emergence of some awful truth, some abrasive outburst, to shatter that unnatural calm—except it just doesn’t happen.

This is as “feel-good” as they come, in the best sense of that word.