Joseph Gordon-Levitt can now add director to his list of talents. The actor has built up his acting credibility since Brick with some very memorable roles in great films (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper). He has been running a successful startup with HitRECord. And now, he goes in front and behind (both the camera and women) with Don Jon, a fun snappy look at modern relationships and sexuality between men and women. Don Jon doesn’t quite blend together and stick the landing, but there’s enough good stuff there to hold promise for Gordon-Levitt’s next film. Plus he gets Scarlet Johansson to wear a breathtaking form-fitting red dress, AWOOOOOOGAH!!!
Don Jon (Gordon-Levitt) is into the simple things: his body, his family, his boys, his girls, and his….porn. For Jon, porn immerses him in a way women cannot satisfy. Things start to change when he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) at a club. He feels she’s a dime (10 out of 10) and can be the connection he so craves for from a real relationship. She, however, sees him like a romantic comedy lead, and tries to turn Jon into the love interest of her own story. She meets his family (Glenne Headly, Tony Danza, and Brie Larson), his friends (Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke), and gets him to go back to school. Things go great until Barbara catches Jon watching porn, since she cannot give him what he truly desires.
Gordon-Levitt shows a very seasoned hand behind the director’s chair. His style comes through from the opening montage, using quick cuts and extreme close-ups to quickly establish a character’s identity and personality. His best scene involves a dinner with himself and Scarlett Johansson where his inner porn monologue interrupts the inane conversation he has with the girl he’s supposed to want. It gives the scene a comedic and biting edge that most directors struggle to create.
His storytelling could use some work though, his first act is solid but the emotional third act feels more forced and out of character to prove a point. Don Jon thinks it is smarter than it is trying to say something about male and female relationships. Some of the best ideas in the story about a male’s role in the dating scene are introduced and dismissed quickly in favor of a funny scene involving swearing before a church sermon. Gordon-Levitt beats the repetition in Don Jon’s life into the ground to make sure the audience know what is important to the man. However, these scenes become less effective the more you see them and add less than they detract from the story progression as a whole.
Gordon-Levitt the actor is ok but unspectacular as the titular Don Jon, a role better played by someone with an established macho personality. And his character’s epiphany in the third act isn’t sold by Gordon-Levitt, although the scene where it happens he is very good. Scarlett Johansson takes a one-note character and makes her 1.5 notes. It is not Johansson’s fault, and she clearly has fun with the accent. Julianne Moore has the plot device role and does the best she can with it. The two impressive thespians in Don Jon are Brie Larson, who caps 2013 with a role with two lines which she makes really fun, and Tony Danza, who comes back from the dead to fit in perfectly with the “Italian macho man father” role.
Look, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you don’t have to try so hard. Don Jon is a solid first effort; your first effort should at least not be a swing and a miss, and it is funnier and smarter than that. Keep doing great films with awesome directors, and your next effort could get you well on your way to the career of the guy who took Batman away from you. Most importantly, you proved that punching a car window leaves no scars on your hands and doesn’t impeded your ability to work out (ok, that was a directing mistake).