Jesse Pasternack explains why Perfect Days exemplifies the subgenre he has named “what if [blank] was Paddington and did [blank],” wherein a cheerful protagonist experiences the joys of everyday life while helping others.

Every cinephile enjoys coining a term to describe their favorite subgenre. There’s something satisfying about taking a series of disparate films, drawing connections between them, and creating a name that describes them perfectly, a little like how you might wrap a little bow around a present. Whether it’s Quentin Tarantino classifying everything from Rio Bravo (1959) to Dazed and Confused (1993) as a “hangout movie” — which has characters who are so entertaining that you watch it mainly for the pleasure of their company — or Jonathan Demme describing his own music documentaries as “performance films” — which is when you shoot and edit a live performance in such a manner that you give the best seat in the house to somebody who can’t see a show — there’s a sense of power and pleasure in giving people a new word to describe something that you love.

I get that feeling when I describe my own favorite subgenre. I call it “what if [blank] was Paddington and did [blank].” That’s a type of film where an acclaimed actor who is typically known for serious and/or dramatic roles plays someone who is so charming and kind that they might as well be the titular bear from the Paddington franchise. That character then does something that can be as specific as achieving a distinctive goal or as general as living with a deep appreciation for the pleasures inherent in everyday life. A few examples include Patterson (2016, “what if Adam Driver was Paddington and drove a bus”), The World’s Fastest Indian (2005, “what if Anthony Hopkins was Paddington and traveled to America to break a speed record”), and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022, “what if Lesley Manville was Paddington and went to Paris to buy a dress”).