“Don Jon”
Directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Danza, Glenne Headly, Julianne Moore, Brie Larson
Comedy, Drama
90 Mins
R

“Porn ruins men’s expectations of sex,” say the sociologists of the internet-age, and young men who’ve grown up under the hypnotic spell of pornography can attest to this exclusively 21st-century tenant. By transforming an act of sensuality into a tour-de-force of sexual servitude and masochistic submissiveness, ideals of what it is to love and to make love become twisted into fantastical situations of serendipitous carnal urges, extreme sexual openness, and immediate, detached subservience. Don Jon – so known for his record-breaking “scoring” streak with the opposite sex – is a man bottle-fed on the objectification oozing from pornography whose ideals of a woman is one that can be accessed with a push of a button and left with the slam of a laptop.

As the porn-obsessed Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a revelation. Until now, he’s been the cute geek, harvesting the hearts of women in films like (500) Days of Summer and winning the goodwill of men with straight-laced roles in films like Inception, Looper and The Dark Knight Rises. We’ve come to expect JGL to play the nice, moral guy (save for his brash and ill-tempered antihero in Hesher), which is why his aloof meathead in Don Jon is such a perfect role for him. Channeling the beefy bravado of a Jersey Shore local, Levitt’s Jon isn’t the brightest of the bunch and he certainly is a bit of a despicable fella. Many of his lesser qualities, we soon learn, can be placed at the feet of his equally trashy parents and their less-than-enviable upbringing tactics.

To this day, Jon is in the shadow of his football-obsessed, wife-beater-wearing father (a man he is named after) played by a rampant Tony Danza. A talent nearly forgotten in time, Danza, and his sinewy shoulders, steals the limelight with scenery-chewing swagger. As the other chromosome donator, Jon’s mother, Angela (Glenne Headly), is an icon of domesticity – placated by the thought that one day Jon will find the perfect girl as she wallows in a cacophonous din of omnipresent ESPN and only kept company by a mentally-absentee husband and a cell-phone-hypnotized daughter (the ever-lovely Brie Larson). Jon confuses his dysfunctional family model with committed relationships. It’s why, to him, porn is king and love is, well, second-rate.

When a Carmella Soprano-channeling Scarlett Johansson steps into the mix, Jon is suddenly willing to swivel his priorities as easily as he does his hips on the dance floor. Johansson’s Barbara is a repugnant brand of Barbie doll ego-centrism and just as porn has shaped Jon’s ideology on sex, Barbara’s own ideals are twisted by an upbringing of romantic comedies. While Jon dreams of mindlessly pounding away, like a drill to a sack of meat, Barbara wets his lips on the idea of a prince in shining armor willing to lay down his coat in the mud for her to spike her perfectly-stilettoed shoes into. Both fantasies are undeniably twisted and make for a tumultuous relationship.

Considering this project is the sole brainchild of Gordon-Levitt – he wrote, directed and stars in it), not to mention his production company, HitRecord, helped finance it, he deserves high praise for his satirical penmanship and a smart-eye for witty camera choices. Well-timed editing often works as a meta-joke and some self-referential foley work helps to clue audiences into the more carnal acts taking place off-camera. For an R-rated film, JGL seemed to have spliced in just as much actual porn as possible – framing each shot in such a way to get the gist without it bursting into the NC-17 realm. Having said that, don’t take your kids and also understand that without the more explicit bits, you’d lose the over-arching impact. If you’re uncomfortable with this brand of material, surely avoid Don Jon but if you want the money-shot, you’re gonna need to plow down this sometimes unsettling road.

Even though watching porn in a movie theater may understandably make many uncomfortable, the funniest part of the movie is found within the overly sexualized climate always stewing in the background. Sex sells, it’s a fact, but the way that JGL employs that within his satire is blissfully funny. It’s closely analogous to the real world but all sex-as-product is ratcheted up just a hair.

I mean, even the Carl’s Jr. ads are sold with a bikini-clad model undressing and clasping her breasts together. In Don Jon‘s world, how could you resist that cheeseburger or a late night trip to the laptop? My one wish is that JGL had gone all the way and realized this vision of a porn-addled culture to another level. As it is, it’s funny in fits and starts but goes limp when you least want it too.

Between his car and his Catholic confession booth, these moments of isolation and self-awareness are where we see the true Jon. A running gag about Jon’s road rage is both funny and tragic – a heated metaphor for his twisted, sexual frustration and a sneering analogy for his bed-bouncing “love-making” tactics. Even more characteristic of his contorted view of right-and-wrong is Jon’s mindless adherence to his religion.

Week after week, Jon races to church, cussing at other cars all the way, to confess his sins. Every Sunday, it’s the same story: “I had sex out of wedlock this many times and I masturbated to pornography this many times.” He knows his sexual conquests and helpless need to spank the monkey while watching hardcore porno is worthy of confession and yet, he seems to genuinely believe that a couple of Hail Mary’s will hit the reset button in the mind of God. That is, until next week. Gordon-Levitt continues to use these bits of self-reflection to get into the mindset of this bulb who isn’t the brightest; this knife that isn’t the sharpest. Down the road though is the promise that he might just be a guy who’s getting it, or at least starting to get it.

Although it works better when it’s functioning as a raw piece of comedy rather than a serious drama, JGL has struck the main vein of a cultural epidemic in Don Jon. Pornography is something that seems to only be discussed in the den of a frat-house or on the front lines of a Gender Studies class, so all the more power to JGL for taking a bold direction for his debut film. Although his satirical hand is often very visible, he take a fair stance on a difficult issue and manages to avoid being overly-condemning while still prompting viewers to examine the issue from their own lens.

Just as Jon delivers his all on the late night dance floor, JGL gives his all artistically, proving there is volcanic potential welling up inside him. Although he doesn’t always juggle the emotional beats with the prevailing comic tone, Don Jon is largely a success that proves JGL a directorial talent to watch. Hopefully he hasn’t blown his whole load here and is ready to go for round two sooner rather than later.