Don Jon
(USA, 90 min.)
Written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne
Moore
Hey, girl, do you like movies? Don Jon likes movies. Not,
like, girly movies—the kinds where chicks drive off into the sunset with
Channing Tatum and live happily ever. Jon likes girly movies—the kind with bouncy chicks and happy endings.
Don Jon, which
marks JGL’s feature debut as a writer and director, might be the most porn-heavy
flick depicting addictions of a sexual nature. Sex addiction was tackled
heavily in 2011’s Shame and
humorously in 2012’s Thanks for Sharing,
which is just making its way into release now, and for the third recent tryst
with sins of the flesh, Don Jon feels
like a refreshing first date.
Don Jon might be
the one of the three films to judge its flesh-loving protagonist most openly
and strongly. Jon, dubbed “the Don” by his friends thanks to his way with
women, isn’t a particularly likeable guy. He’s a douchey Guido sleazebag who
would fit in well with the cast of “Jersey Shore”. Arrogant, aware of his good
looks, and cocky beyond redemption, Gordon-Levitt presents the audience with a
guy who gets what he wants, but for whom the gets are never enough.
Case in point: Jon and his boys (Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke)
are scoping out the babes at the local hot spot and grading them on a scale
from one to ten when Jon spies a total dime in a red dress. Said dime is
Barbara, played by a sultry Scarlett Johansson, is a perfect ten: gorgeous,
nice, fun, flirty, well-rounded, and somebody Jon can take home to mom and dad.
(He surprisingly cares about more than having a girl who’s a piece of ass.) Sex
with Barbara isn’t as good as sex with ladies on the Internet, though, and Jon
sneaks away from late night cuddling to sit alone in the dark with his laptop.
The Don also feeds his love for PornHub during his dates with Barbara. She doesn’t put out quickly enough for Jon, instead offering him awkward teenage dry humps over home base. Barbara is a catch, but she simply can’t match the pornographic amount of fantasies and fetishes that are a click away.
A bit like Steve McQueen’s Shame does Gordon-Levitt build the mentality of addiction that
fuels Jon. McQueen, for example, opens his film with a cyclical rhythm in which
sex for Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is as basic an urge as getting up in the
morning and going to the bathroom. It’s a regular bodily function. Ditto The
Don, whose habit is just as routine as toning his muscles at the gym or going to church once a week. (Although Don would have to go to church three to eleven times a day to keep the likeness accurate.)
Don Jon shows how
Jon’s addiction is fuelled by the rampant sexism in contemporary media. Jon and
his father (Tony Danza) slurps spaghetti at the dinner table whilst watching a
buxom babe in a bikini go down on a chicken sandwich on TV. The sandwich is
much more than a piece of meat, the commercial’s narrator says, but he mentions
nothing of the woman. More images proliferate the film, like the movie within a
movie that Jon and Barbara see on their first date. It’s a sugary fantasy that
Barbara watches with a smile on her face of Amélie-like escapism, but Jon just
thinks it’s fake and corny. He doesn’t realize, though, that all the moans and
groans on PornHub are just as false.
Less successful, though, is Jon’s bizarre text-addict sister
(Brie Larson, who is currently earning raves for Short Term 12) who remains a silent presence in the film aside from
the clacking on her mobile. She even texts in church! Jon’s family is a true
oddity—and perhaps a mild offense to Italian-Americans—as the histrionics of
their pasta-dinners are loud, gaudy chitchats about traditional families.
They’re also mildly indicative that Jon’s addiction is hereditary, as his dad
treats Jon’s mom (Glenn Headley) as background noise as he checks out Barbara’s
backside at the table or, better yet, her cleavage in church. Sins of the flesh
run in the family.
Gordon-Levitt handles this sticky subject well for his first
effort as a feature director. Don Jon
is mostly slick and smart. JGL gives a stylish and trendy look at forging
substantial connections when the overload of sexism in contemporary
communications has essentially numbed any need for physical contact.
Gordon-Levitt whittles away the assault of chauvinism that characterizes Don Jon’s first half by introducing a
second, more mature female friend in the back half of the film. Esther (Julianne
Moore) is a product of a generation that predates cheap Internet porn and
romance via keystrokes. The key to love is two-way communication, Esther
teaches Jon, and unlike the one-way contact of porn, which simply satisfies
urges.
Johansson, on the other hand, continues her banner year of
seductive performances with Don Jon. Playing
the object of the male gaze without seeming like another one-dimensional
centrefold is a tough feat of pull off, but Johansson makes it work. Her Barbara
plays perfectly to Jon’s lust, yet the composure of her performance tells the
audience that there is more to Barbara than meets the eye. Johansson is
palpably seductive in Don Jon,
especially since she plays Barbara almost like a well-mannered tease, getting
the audience hot and excited without ever having to strip. The allure isn’t
just in her physical beauty: it’s in her behaviour and her confidence. Take her
first date with Jon. Barbara shows up in a casual leather jacket that hugs the
curves of Johansson’s body. Barbara teases flirtatiously and the big wad of
bubble gum she tosses around with the luscious lips Jon desires shows that she
is aware of her aura and her power over men. (The sight of Scarlett Johansson
chewing gum might be the sexiest thing to hit the screen all year.) Like her
alien in Under the Skin, Johansson’s
Barbara is a man-eater, but she is exactly what The Don needs to set him
straight. She sets the screen on fire and steals every scene of Don Jon in which she appears.
The strong performances from Moore and especially Johansson
also help balance out the ickiness of Don Jon’s addiction. Moore gets the most
complicated—if strangest—role as the seasoned hippie who befriends Jon in his
night classes. She’s the first female character Don Jon sees with a third dimensions. Filtered as something other
than carnal appetite, although the performance has plenty of sex appeal, Moore
creates a woman damaged by the loss of substantial connections. Placed
alongside with Jon, Esther conveys that porn offers only temporary satisfaction.
The payoff of relationships, rooted in love and communication, is not nearly as
accessible as they seem in Jon’s fantasies, but Don Jon shows that their buffering time is worth the wait. It's a promising first step for Mr. Gordon-Levitt
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Don Jon is currently playing in theatres everywhere.
