Don Jon

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a b@stard.

While he may have started off as the oldest alien stuck in the body of a teenage boy, he has developed into a talented writer, actor and director. I mean what can’t he do? I mean what if someone gave him a dare to write a film about a Jersey Shore porn addict with relationship and cleanliness issues, starring Tony Danza?  It’s not like he could pull that off right?

What a b@stard!

Synopsis for Don Jon:

Jon (Gordon-Levitt) loves his family, his best friends, his car, keeping his apartment clean, hot girls and porn. Jon has absolutely no issues finding attractive women to have meaningless relationships with, however there is something about porn that he loses himself in, in a way that he can’t in a really physical relationship.  But then he meets  Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who refuses to go home with him.  Jon realizes that he needs more than one night stands. Jon and Barbara embark on his first relationship, with Barbara having some pretty firm ideas about romance, and relationships and they do not involve porn.

So let the hi-jinks begin.

The first thing that makes you empathise with Jon, despite his predilection for porn, is his simple sincerity, with his friends, family, his faith, and ensuring that his apartment is clean.  His addiction to porn seems an anathema, especially given his ready access to beautiful women.  However it is through actually have a relationship with Barbara and an odd friendship with fellow student Esther that he starts developing more as a human being. Jon is static and and without realizing it is in a rut, and that is why he cannot connect with women on a physical level.

Oh don't worry about the porn element, it isn't a gratuitous element, but it is a focus of the characters dysfunction. In fact those who loathe porn might feel a little bit justified by the end of the film.

7 stars.