Don Jon (2013) Review

Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a New Jersey bartender, knows what’s important: his family, friends, car, church, sexual conquests and porn. When Jon falls for the beautiful Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), he changes his womanising ways. But, soon Jon realises that it is a lot harder to break up with his one true love: internet porn.

The film opens by bombarding the audience with a quick-fire pop-culture montage: lipstick adverts, bikini-clad girls, music videos, ring girls. After a while, Jon segues into searching for internet porn. Within the first few seconds of Don Jon, the audience is introduced to the main character by watching him masturbate in the bright glow of a laptop screen. The switch to searching for porn does not take much after watching the oversexualized music videos and ring girls.

Yet Don Jon is not a tragic drama about the pornification and widespread sexual objectification of women in today’s society. Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes no qualms about what the film is about. Don Jon is about a man’s failure to achieve and feel true intimacy and love due to his porn addiction. Trust the actor whose silver screen emergence transpired via 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) and 500 Days of Summer (2009), to create a romantic comedy with a refreshing twist in the form of Don Jon.

Casting himself in his writing-directorial debut, as a man so effortlessly irresistible to the ladies that his dim-witted friends have dubbed him 'Don', was no display of arrogance from Gordon-Levitt. He originally wanted Channing Tatum to take the role before deciding to take it upon himself. Jon may be cool, charming and gets to kiss many beautiful women, especially Scarlett Johansson, who portrays Barbara Sugarman, but he still spends a large portion of the film pleasuring himself in front of a computer screen. Even after he managed to get into a relationship with a woman who seemed to be the perfect girlfriend. Jon excuses this by stating, "Nothing does it for me the same way," and "Not even real pussy."

Don Jon's plot immediately steers away from easy explanations of his personality flaws, dysfunction, and addiction. Jon is not "sick". He is a result of media influence. Jon is a character many will struggle to find likeable, but he is not utterly abhorrent thanks to Gordon-Levitt. His perception of women is laughable. He objectifies women and desires a one-sided, shallow relationship with them because that is what the media has conditioned him to want and expect. The girls he is intimate with in real life never meet the unrealistic sexual expectations of girls he watches in the pornos. He allows himself to get lost in pornography because it does not expect or need anything from him in exchange – rather than actual women, who he believes ask unrealistic requests from him, like for him to do all the "work" in the bedroom and life. His devout Catholicism is his way out of feeling guilt. A few Hail Marys and prayers here and there set him right again, so he believes. But religion is not the answer to Jon's problems. Inevitably, his self-focused and narcissistic views make connecting and respecting women challenging. Don Jon might be an amusing satire on romantic comedies with some very erotic flashes. The film is also an intriguing story of redemption, of a struggle to handle expectations and, ultimately, to stop objectifying women.

A fascinating thing about the film is that Gordon-Levitt even showcases and tears down the culture around romance comedies and movies. Johansson’s Barbara loves the idea of love and she gets all this from Hollywood romance-fantasy films. She is as unruly, superficial and egotistical as Jon. Except her misplaced desires come from romantic films instead of Jon's pornography. As a result, Barbara herself has problems with finding true love. She expects Jon to be as perfect as the men in her romcoms. She desires love, perfection and the characteristics of a hero that lives in the world of her Hollywood films, but in return, she can not offer anything apart from her looks. A scene where this becomes evident happens when the two of them are watching Special Someone, a movie made for the movie’s universe, starring Channing Tatum and Anne Hathaway. When watching the film, Barbara cries, "He gave up everything for her" and a disapproving Jon replies, "Her? She’s too skinny. " They both want something from the relationship and partners that is impossible to achieve.

Both are left dissatisfied with the relationship. Barbara fails to be Jon’s sex vixen whom he desires from his porn videos, and believes he deserves, who will equally be his perfect housewife. Jon fails to be the sacrificing romantic hero who will do everything for her. Barbara expects her man to be after being manipulated by her movies. Neither is willing to put the work into the relationship as they both believe the perfect relationship does not require any work. They want to love the easy way.

As a director, Gordon-Levitt displays spectacular confidence, and his film has an alluring pace as it flashes back and forth between his obsessive masturbation, dinners with his beloved family, his rudimental confessions, laddish bantering with his narcissist friends, and his conscientious night-schooling. The true self-betterment of Jon begins when he attends night school via a development that incorporates the biggest concessions of the plot to the romantic comedy genre, but it manages to satisfy, largely thanks to Julianne Moore's on-the-nose casting as a struggling classmate.

Don Jon is further evidence of the relentless, all-round talent of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It is noteworthy that he produced a romantic comedy that not only provides original content to satirise but at the same time it showcases a pertinent point about society, alleviating the typical simplicity of the genre's wish-fulfilment. Don Jon is the ultimate antidote to any Hollywood fantasy world that has ever fooled you, much smarter, sexier and honest than your standard rom-com.