Talking about the role of cinema is such a monumental task that it's almost pointless—cinema means something different to everyone at different times and in different places. To me, one of the vital roles of cinema is to celebrate the mundane, the everyday, and to transform it into something vital. We want to see ourselves reflected on the screen; our better or worse selves, something to reject or something to aspire to. _Paterson_ does this beautifully: it's an ode to the normal and the extraordinary that resides within it, to the idea that each of us should always strive to fulfil something greater and deeper.

Paterson is a former Marine who now drives a bus in the city of Paterson, New Jersey. His favourite poet is William Carlos Williams who was inspired by the streets Paterson drives every day and the falls he takes his lunch at. He is married to Laura and every evening he takes her dog Marvin for a walk and has a drink at his favourite bar. This is Paterson's life, such as it is, and we are witness to a week of it. Jim Jarmusch focuses on the minute details of Paterson's life: a conversation in a laundromat, the engine of a bus breaking down, the patter you have with a colleague in the minutes before you're due to officially start work. Throughout, Adam Driver imbues Paterson with a quiet warmth and complexity that finds its outlet in his own poetry; we see the events in Paterson's life reverberate in his writing and vice versa. It's a towering performance from Driver, delicate and restrained and always a marvel. The performances of those around him, particularly Golshifteh Farahani as Laura, complement him perfectly. The people he meets and the conversations he has feel very low-key and natural—we're never taken out of Paterson, or away from him. The film builds up to an event that changes things profoundly for him; something that seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but is a deeply personal loss. This is the closest thing the film has to a moment of great drama, and it's satisfying that it leads to what feels, genuinely, like a moment of personal growth. A little progress, something we all crave, and something that feels immensely relatable.

It helps that it's a very beautifully made film. Jarmusch and Frederick Elmes do a wonderful job of creating a sense of Paterson's regimented life and showing off his environment. The writing is excellent throughout, from the dialogue and the silences that fill the spaces in between to the poetry that springs from Paterson and those around him. I found the film to be a near-perfect thing—gentle, meandering, beautiful in a way that is both surprising and of great comfort.