It’s not difficult to imagine how the pitch meeting for Don Jon went: “So, there’s this porn addict…” I know I would be skeptical, but, then again, I’m not part of Hollywood’s key adolescent boy demographic. It’s certainly not an easy story idea to pull off, and the main character is about as likable and multi-layered as a cardboard cutout of Todd Akin. Still, there’s a lot more to this film than first impressions allow.
What may seem like an obnoxious tale of porn addiction is instead an intelligent satire of the ways in which the media we consume influence our expectations of our partners and relationships in general. If anyone can pull that off, it’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
As Jon, JGL is a slick Jersey Shore lothario with incredibly simple tastes. This guy knows his values: his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls, and his porn. We choose what to worship, and Don Jon reveres the physical above all else. He objectifies every element of his existence, fitting it into his vision of the perfect, carefree life.
Inevitably, that includes women. He rarely spends more than one night with any of his conquests, insistently reminding the audience that the real thing just isn’t the same as porn. We’re treated to endlessly repetitive shots of JGL booting up his Mac in a darkened room, entering Pornlandia, doing his thing and then throwing a tissue into a wastebasket. (He uses the exact same sound effect of adding a file to your trash on a Mac. It’s amazing I don’t now think of masturbating movie stars every time I clear out my electronic debris.)
It’s clear that this directorial choice is meant to highlight the intensity of his character’s addiction, yet it’s tiring to watch after about the fifth take of the same onanistic routine. The first rule of satire is exaggeration, yet as a director, JGL has a tendency to take the cartoonish nature of his characters too far. In any story, an element of plausible nuance is a necessity.
One of the greatest problems I had with Don Jon, after all, was with its female characters. Scarlett Johansson is perfectly cast as Barbara Sugarman, the gum-chewing bombshell who tries to change Jon’s ways, though it turns out she has her own media addiction: romantic comedies. Basing her expectations of the Perfect Boyfriend on the gospel of chick flicks, she thrusts a hefty set of standards onto Jon. I could sympathize with both characters and their inability to understand each other without the crutch of their respective media narratives, but it seemed that JGL allowed his audience to be far less forgiving of Barbara for her weakness than of Jon for his own.
This problem escalates with the arrival of deux ex machina Esther (Julianne Moore), a breezy, middle-aged woman clearly meant to teach Jon about the value of intimacy in relationships. Her role is a little too hastily heightened at the very end of the film, though, making it seem like JGL just needed a way to neatly wrap up his coming-of-age story. Something about the couple’s interactions feels a little too polished and convenient, not the messy stuff of real human evolution and relationships.
In spite of these noteworthy shortcomings, Don Jon boasts fantastic comedic timing and remarkable insight into the ways in which love and sex are shaped by consumer culture and media overload. It’s unabashedly shameless, and I’ve seen nothing else that so confidently satirizes such a prevalent problem in an age when we’re more likely to look at screens than faces. This is a comedy of guilty pleasures that’s aware of its own status as a guilty pleasure, and it’s that rare consciousness that sets it apart.
This is an absolutely phenomenal headline.
Also, hate to be nit-pickey, but I just noticed you should have it as *deus ex machina, not *deux ex machina. #Collegenewspapereditorproblems