Don Jon is a comedy and drama film written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Film is starred by Joseph himself, Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore. This film is Josephs first full-length film as a director.
The simplified plot: The main storyline is about a man called Don Jon. His life is simple, routine based and basically perfect. Well, not so perfect, he has a serious porn addiction. One of the everyday routines is to go out with friends. And every nights resolution is to pick up a random chick for a one-night stand. Then suprisingly one woman changes all that. That woman is Barbara Sugarman. Once Jon spots her he has to get her, but she isn’t so easy and wants something more serious. After getting together barbara catches him watching porn and threatens with split-up if he doesn’t stop it. Jon tries to stop but does it still when she isnt around. But in the time being she starts to spend more time with him and jon starts to feel intimidated. Then Barbara discovers Jons browser history and breaks up with him. When they were still together barbara persuaded jon to attend evening classes for better job possibilities. During classes jon met older woman Esther and they started to become closer. With Esther Jon learned many important skills in life, and finally even got rid of his addiction.
Characters of the film are interesting. Most interesting is, without the doubt the main character Jon. His personality and habits are just something that you may not understand but still, it feels kinda real, not fake. With further investigation I found out many conflicting opinions about him. I personally think that he is a bit self-centered and obectifies almost everything. On the other hand Barbara Sugarman is a woman that holds tight of her manners and opinions. Esther is a bit older nice woman in which kind of people you can rely on.
Maybe the biggest thing that caught my eye was usage of traditional camera angles which doesn’t present anything extraordinary. Usually using same passive angle makes you bored eventough not so easily noticeable, but thats’s not the case with this film. There is so much happening all the time that you don’t spot it. The most interesting thing is brave usage of repetition. The same driving scene is shown about ten times but in this it’s just a good thing. And I personally find those scenes very funny.
From my opinion this film is awesome for directors first film, but not the best film of the year. I can recommend this to people who have good sense of humour and aren’t scared or terrified by some naked skin or slight violence.