DON JON (2013)

Genre: Comedy/Drama
Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza, Brie Larson, Glenne Headly
RunTime: 1 hr 30 mins
Rating: R21 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: http://donjonmovie.tumblr.com/

Opening Day: 7 November 2013 

Synopsis: Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a strong, handsome, good old fashioned guy. His buddies call him Don Jon due to his ability to "pull" a different woman every weekend, but even the finest fling doesn't compare to the bliss he finds alone in front of the computer watching pornography. Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) is a bright, beautiful, good old fashioned girl. Raised on romantic Hollywood movies, she's determined to find her Prince Charming and ride off into the sunset. Wrestling with good old fashioned expectations of the opposite sex, Jon and Barbara struggle against a media culture full of false fantasies to try and find true intimacy in this unexpected comedy written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Movie Review:

Not many first-time writer/ directors would have had the gumption to take on as tricky a subject as online porn addiction, so you have to hand it to Joseph Gordon Levitt for not only doing so, but spinning an unlikely rom-com around the intriguing but risky premise of whether one such addict can find love in the real world. And here’s another even more impressive fact - Levitt plays against type as that titular individual, the ‘Don Jon’ of the movie, modelled after the fictional Spanish libertine whose womanising ways led to his tragi-comedic fate but whom eventually found redemption in love.

Right from the get-go, Levitt impresses with his sharp and incisive writing. With disarming clarity, his Lothario character Jon Martello explains in the opening voiceover just exactly why a man who has no trouble with bedding the ladies still finds function for pornography in his life. It is to his credit that we immediately come to accept why the Don, after having sex with an attractive woman, finds the need to slip out of bed, turn on his computer and then proceed to masturbate over porn.

As a fascinating study in contradictions, Jon doesn’t quite end there. He is faithful to his Catholic church, which he attends religiously every Sunday with his family, confesses his sins - that of masturbation and sex out of wedlock - and starts the week on a clean slate after a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Jon is also devoted to his boys Bobby (Rob Brown) and Danny (Jeremy Luke), as well as his family - a lunkhead of a dad (sitcom icon Tony Danza), a slightly hysterical mom (Glenne Headly) and a silent-texting sister Monica (Brie Larson). “My body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my boys, my girls, my porn,” sums up Jon several times in the movie, and it is to Levitt’s credit that Jon is such a fully formed character that we never fail to be engaged with.

Like such narratives go, Jon meets the “girl of his dreams”, a perfect 10 on Jon’s scale who is first seen in a scorching red dress standing by the bar. Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) is cast as the fantasy girl of a million sexual daydreams, and Jon is immediately so enamoured with her that he thinks she might be “the one”. But Barbara is living in her own fantasy as well, that of Hollywood romances built on happy endings, Prince Charmings and basically unrealistic expectations - and Levitt throws in a fun faux-rom com moment with cameos from Channing Tatum and Anne Hathaway.

Contrasting Jon’s addiction and Barbara’s obsession with escapist fairy-tale romances, Levitt ruminates just how media screws up modern-day expectations of relationships, be it dating or sex, and asks pointedly whether it is still possible for two people to make a meaningful connection. The answer in Jon’s case is pleasantly unexpected; she arrives in the form of Ester (Julianne Moore), older, much less attractive than Barbara, and carrying her own emotional baggage - the first time Jon spots the lady who attends his night class, she is seen sobbing away. We won’t spoil the surprise for you; suffice to say that Moore presents an interesting angle to Levitt’s conundrum of sex versus pornography and offers a poignant explanation.

Every one of the characters is expertly crafted; even though at first sight they may seem to be constructed like formula, Levitt eventually makes each feel real and authentic. They are also extremely well-cast. Johansson, in probably one of her best performances, embodies the bossy girl from the East Side with attitude and verve, while Moore serves up another well-nuanced performance. And in smaller supporting roles, Danza and Headly are hilarious as Don’s pair of bickering parents, the former especially amusing when he first meets the bodacious Barbara.

Amidst it all, Levitt is undoubtedly the mind, heart and soul of the movie. Putting on that Jersey accent as comfortably as Tony Manero in ‘Saturday Night Fever’, Levitt inhabits his character with just the right mix of brio and empathy to depict Jon’s addiction and yet maintain the sympathy of both male and female audiences; especially meaningful is how he handles his character’s transformation from self-centred to thoughtful as he grows in his relationship with Ester.

But in a year where we’ve seen Levitt grow into one of the most promising actors in his generation, ‘Don Jon’ is even more significant for demonstrating that he can juggle triple duties - acting, writing and directing - with equal dexterity. With wit and intelligence, he brings across without preaching or being didactic the ills of pornography, especially in how it potentially limits capacity for interaction and makes pleasure a one-sided affair. As a director, Levitt gifts his movie with visual panache, the cinematography and cutting going hand in hand to create an exuberant vibe that at times is specifically constructed to mirror that high one supposedly gets from watching pornography. In particular, he uses repetition as an inspired technique to show his character’s evolution in the way that Jon approaches routines which become familiar to the viewer over the course of the movie.

More conservative audiences might initially be put off by his liberal use of crass language, or the way Don objectifies women, or even its lurid images of pneumatic breasts, bulbous buttocks and cavernous mouths, but we urge you to let the movie settle in, and you’ll find that this unconventional character study is in fact smart, assured and surprisingly poignant. Much more than about pornography, it is at its heart about finding affection and making connection, both of which technology or even its mediated communication just cannot replace. 

Movie Rating:  

(Witty, satirical, and darkly poignant, this unusual character study is an assured, stylish and ultimately impressive writing/ directing debut for Joseph Gordon Levitt)

Review by Gabriel Chong