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Often adopting the form of the popular media it aims to skewer, “Don Jon” unfolds like a pop song, with repeated riffs and verses that aggressively push it forward.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that the literary-inspired lead character, Jon, a “Joisey” caricature played by debut writer/director Joseph Gordon-Levitt, cares about only a few things in life: his body, his pad, his ride, his boys, his girls, his family, his church, and his precious, addictive porn. Each of these things is countlessly repeated in a sort of feature-length, audiovisual checklist, with every power-up sound of a porn-enabling laptop subsequently matched with yet another trip to the confession box.
For a while, “Don Jon” proves to be the rare film that actually benefits from a lack of nuance. The shallow, plainspoken nature of its aforementioned pieces, coupled with invigoratingly brisk editing, succeeds at conveying the shallowness of Jon’s day-to-day, while also yielding age-old, echoing comic returns.
Prone to serial one-night stands but preferring porn for its fantasy qualities, Jon sees his world shaken up when he catches sight of bombshell Barbara Sugarman, a fellow regional stereotype played with glorious commitment by Scarlett Johansson. Barbara seems like she could be “the one,” a philosophy the über-primped gal appreciates thanks to her Hollywood rom-com obsession, but she has control freak issues that prove troubling (and her flesh-and-blood presence can’t break the virtual-sex habit).
While he’s no sage when it comes to assessing our objectification-filled culture, Gordon-Levitt shows a sure hand in crafting an enormously fun satire, and deftly expresses how Barbara’s own viewing practices can be just as personally damaging as Jon’s. “Don Jon” ultimately runs off course with the introduction of Esther (Julianne Moore), a middle-aged widow from a night class John’s taking, who winds up teaching the young buck — first-hand, so to speak —how to gain human sexual connection truly. The obvious wisdom Esther imparts feels like a cheap and counter-productive corrective to everything that preceded it — a tacked-on coda that tries, in vain, to deepen what was coasting along just fine on the surface.
Don Jon
R
Two-and-a-half reels out of four
Now playing at area theaters
Recommended Rental
Much Ado About Nothing
PG-13
Available Tuesday
Not into Joss Whedon’s genre material? Like “The Avengers” or TV’s “Agents of Shield”? Perhaps you’d like to try the fanboy favorite’s take on Shakespeare.
In his adaptation of The Bard’s classic comedy, Whedon opts for a black-and-white palette, and a tone that’s reminiscent of screwball Hollywood flicks of the 1940s. The writer-director packs his cast with past collaborators (Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg) and new arrivals (Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof), who make for an ace ensemble.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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