"Don Jon" (2013)

There are interesting ideas about romance, commitment, and the state of modern dating and masculinity in Don Jon, but the film consistently plays its hand too neatly. The film has ambitions that far exceed its grasp: It attempts to subvert the rom com structure by putting a male protagonist into the central role and point of view, making his romantic interest more complicated than we might expect, and adding an extra twist of addiction. Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and directed), nicknamed "Don" by his friends for his extensive sexual conquests, finds himself at an impasse between his sexual encounters and the porn he avidly watches. The latter has become more satisfying and arousing than the women he's bedding. When he meets the gorgeous but hard to please Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johannson), it throws him for a loop: here is a woman he finally can't get so easily. Jon desperately pursues her, but when he does finally have sex, after dating her for months, meeting her friends and introducing her to his heartedly-approving family, he takes no pleasure from it. He says he's in love but he's still more in love with his porn, which becomes problematic when Barbara catches him looking at it. Though there's often enough interesting things being said in Don Jon, it all feels so self-evident, and not particularly memorably told, that it's hard to really become invested in the film. That is at least until the film's pronouncements take an unexpected turn at film's end that, while interesting, never fully aligns with the previous storytelling. As a directorial debut for Gordon-Levitt, it shows he's willing to take risks and can create something sturdy: sometimes that's all you can ask for.

Grade: ★★