After flailing around Hollywood for close to a decade dating men who confused sex and love, I could not be more thrilled with Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s “Don Jon.” Here a man nails men for objectifying women. A man!
“Don Jon” is Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s cinematic kiss to all women who confuse sex and love. He illustrates why men understand this and so many women don’t. He shows in our techno age the emotional handicapping porn does to men. He takes us there.
An entire audience is blown away with the objectification of women by Don Jon and his boys who are trying so hard to have a good time rating women while under the surface humor is incredible pathos. Loneliness. A flick of the laptop and click of a mouse opens a world of hidden sex, clandestine thrills, so much so that Don fills his trash can with soiled Kleenex night after night while his bed remains empty.
Then he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a tease of stratospheric proportions. Johansson shines in this part of a femme fatale from Jersey who, like her mother, is a control freak. Men are easy for her to dominate, until she meets Don.
After a month of dating, she concedes to having sex with him because he enrolls in a night school to improve himself — a bartender is not good enough for her. As she grooms him, he finds he cannot stop watching his porn and lies to her that he has quit his addiction.
Truth is, he prefers porn to sex with her. They go to church together, meet each other’s parents and friends. Jon’s mother is Angela (Glenn Headly) and his father, Jon Sr., is Tony Danza. Don’s sister, Monica, is played with great aplomb by Brie Larson, whose weekly texting during the church service is worth the price of admission.
At night school Don meets Esther (Julianne Moore), whose personality is nurturing, uncontrolling and accepting. Moore shines from the glow of her rich inner life.
When Barbara reads Don’s history in his laptop and sees 94 visits to porn sites within one week, she walks out on him.. Can Don ever love a woman, or will his life remain one of viewing women on his computer as a series of body parts? Do Esther and Don become a couple?
Well, you’ve gotta buy your ticket to this gem of a love story that shows you how to love while you find yourself recalling and longing for those moments when you, too, were in love.
You won’t regret one minute of Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s original screenplay, directorial debut and triumph.
