Don Jon (2013)
Certified: 18
Duration: 90 minutes
Directed by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Rob Brown, Glenne Headly, Brie Larson, Tony Danza, Jeremy Luke
KRS release
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Jon Martello, a bartender in New Jersey. For his friends Bobby and Danny (Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke), he is the man when it comes to women. He has the uncanny ability to pick up girls and have sex with them effortlessly. Maybe it’s because he has a sculpted body, has a great car and is in tip-top shape.
However, he has an addiction: porn. For him watching porn is more satisfying than real sex.
He starts dating Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) but holds out on the sex for the first month. She is a domineering woman who pegs him down, but he does not see this. He soon takes her home to meet his family: mother Angela (Glenne Headly), father Jon Sr (Tony Danza), who swears a lot, and his sister Monica (Brie Larson), who is always texting.
Trouble arises when Barbara checks Jon’s computer and realises he has not kept his promise to stop visiting porn sites. Meanwhile, he starts to become closer to an older woman named Esther (Julianne Moore) who has been through a personal tragedy.
Gordon-Levitt has surely come a long way. As a child he made appearances in such films as A River Runs Through It (1992) and as a teen made his way into the TV sitcom 3rd Rock From the Sun. Since then, he has delivered very strong principal and supporting roles in the likes of 500 Days of Summer (2009), Inception (2010), Looper (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Lincoln (2012) and Premium Rush (2012).
Gordon-Levitt delivers a movie that is as surprising as much as it is refreshing
With Don Jon, he makes his cinematic directorial debut after directing two short films. And he does this successfully.
He delivers a winning comedy that is very hard to categorise. Slotting it into the romantic comedy genre would definitely do it an injustice because it veers away from the mainstream fare. And as a comedy, it has more to offer than the norm.
Gordon-Levitt has created a memorable character and directs the film with earnestness. Jon seems to live by his own rules and his life revolves, in one way or another, around the way he perceives the world.
When he lists all the things that are important to him – his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his girls and his porn – we know that his character is waiting to grow up and just needs a catalyst to get out of that shell.
Danza makes an excellent turn as Jon’s dad. Johansson is simply sexy and the camera accentuates this. Thus it is easy to understand why she is the one who throws Jon’s ordered life into a loop. She is not your typical movie dumb blonde. Then we have Moore who is the real heart of the movie and its cherry on the cake.
The film has a tongue-in-cheek attitude, especially evident in the scene where the couple watch a romantic comedy starring Channing Tatum and Anne Hathaway in a hilarious montage. The picture has a traditional structure and Gordon-Levitt does not take risks, but he does take risks with the film’s sensibilities and the pay-off is evident.
As an actor, the usual wiry Gordon-Levitt delivers a muscular performance that typifies the machismo that one would relate with such a character. As a director, he delivers a movie that is as surprising as much as it is refreshing.