Don Jon (2013)

  This is the Christy selection for March.  They got a little out of order around the time the Oscar nominations came out and I haven't had a chance to really catch up until recently.  I've now added her picks from June through September to my queue so I should be getting to those relatively soon and in order.

Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a young Brooklynite who is really only concerned with how he looks.  All other joys serve as a reflection of this most important thing.  He goes out with his buddies (Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke) to the club and picks up girl after girl to take home, but confesses that he gets more enjoyment out of looking at online porn.  Then he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a solid 10 who knows exactly how to string him along.  Because of her, he starts going to night school and quits watching porn.  For a while.  At school, he meets Esther (Julianne Moore), an older lady who pushes him to question why he's so unsatisfied with his sexual encounters.  This introspection prompts the disruption of his comfortable facade.

As a directorial debut, this is not as bad as it could have been.  It's competently done with respect to all the filmmaking aspects.  The casting is excellent, especially the supporting roles and the cameos.  Gordon-Levitt has a lot of famous friends and is not shy about bringing them in.  If this were just a lighthearted comedy, it would be enough.  The Achilles heel of this film is its unwillingness to truly dive in to the issues it raises.  Instead, it skirts them, bringing up the oversexualization of advertising and the increased objectification of women in pornography but not saying anything about them.  It tries to defend Jon's internet addiction by saying that porn as a fantasy is no different than the romantic comedy tropes Barbara adores and while that is true, it rings hollow because it's just thrown away in the film.  It could have dived into the toxic masculinity perpetuated in the relationship between Jon and his father (an excellent against-type Tony Danza) but is content just to leave them as stereotypes.

All in all, it's not a bad movie.  I just found it disappointing because I really like Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  He's never really been afraid to take risks in his acting and this felt very much like he was playing it safe.