I will go out a limb here (and try not to cut the branch out from under myself) and say that I feel this is nearly a perfect movie. Oh, I don’t mean that it is one of the best of all time, or even that it makes my own top ten list. But rarely does a film live up so well to what it strives to accomplish.

It is a quiet and gentle movie, full of love in nearly every scene. The two leads have great chemistry together. Laura almost comes across as a ditzy character, but the more time I spent with her, the more she seemed merely quirky, artistic and wise in small ways that matter in life. She is optimistic and confident in her marriage, so I feared something would come along to threaten or damage that confidence. But that is not what this movie is about.

Paterson could easily be a date night movie, or a “It has been a long day” movie to help you unwind. Heck, there is no violence, explicit language or sex, so you could watch it with kids and talk about some of the stuff that happens. (Not too young though; it might be too slow for real young’uns.) There is mild (and again, gentle) humor here, like from the scene-stealing dog Marvin, played by Nellie!

When I went back to school in my 30s, we studied poet William Carlos Williams in an Honors program course, so I was interested to hear some of his work here. As the film states, he was a physician by occupation, but also a respected poet who influenced those who followed him. The book we studied (Perhaps the one named for the city of Paterson) actually began with a colon, like this - : Imagine the fun we had in class discussing why he did that!

Actually, I wasn’t crazy about the poems the character Paterson wrote in this film. I think the best poetry leaves a few things out, or represent by inference thoughts with word images. These poems feel like they would work just as well slid together as a prose essay. But I write novels, not poems, so what do I know, except that I really like this movie?