Don Jon's Addiction (4/5 Stars)

I’ve been reading a lot of old books by old people and some new books about old people lately. Old like anything before the 20^th century old. It is a bit stunning how they articulate interpersonal relationships. Take for instance an ordinary letter between family members or between lovers. They are unabashedly incredibly romantic in language and verse. Move a little bit closer to the present day and consider a run of the mill rock and roll song from the 1950s and 1960s. They surely were not as serious as 19^th century letters but the musicians really seemed to like the person the song was about. Nowadays songs are more than likely to resemble some sort of revenge straight from the fallout of a bad breakup or yet another skirmish in an ongoing bad romance directed more toward a mass audience counting points than to the other person involved. We’ve lost something that much is for sure.

There’s probably plenty of blame to go around. For my money, I think the main difference is the far less present specter of death. Back then, people dropped like flies all the time with an astounding amount of women and children kicking the bucket from childbirth complications. Just dead people and babies everywhere. I think that’s why way they took relationships with the still living so seriously.

Compare that with today, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s writing/directing debut “Don Jon’s Addiction” is a good example, where it seems that people convinced of their ability to live long lives without any true drama are trying their best to take themselves and others as unserious as possible. This movie is now called “Don Jon” instead of the previous title “Don Jon’s Addiction” ever since the marketers got their grubby hands on it. But “Don Jon’s Addiction” is a better title. It makes it clear that this is not the raping/murdering evil lothario we’ve seen before in operas and plays. This is a modern Don Jon that unabashedly takes part in a far more benign promiscuous practice. This Don Jon likes pornography. He likes it a lot. 

Don Jon is played by the writer/director himself, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in a part that is very much against type. JGL over an already long career has proven himself adept at playing smart and cool customers (Brick, Inception, Looper). Don Jon is anything but that. The first thing you will notice is that JGL spent a bit of time in the gym for this one. He has especially bulked up around the shoulders to pull off the look of one of that guy in the club who spends his time with his buddies rating women 1-10 (a ten being a ‘dime’) and cultivating a streak of a different woman every week. Don Jon is especially adept at doing this. He looks good, has a nice pad, but most importantly acts like a complete buffoon. That last one because it is the main ingredient. One-night stands are hard things to pull off when the other person takes you seriously. JGL, the writer, seems to really get this and the movie is strongest when he pits his character up against a ‘dime’ played by Scarlett Johansson.  Both are smart people but as this is a modern relationship, the conversations consist of them taking turns trying to out stupid the other. The first date is especially a delight as it is a clever exercise in unassuming immaturity.

But do not let the characters fool you into thinking the movie itself is lightweight. “Don Jon’s Addiction,” is a movie of ideas even if its characters are not all that articulate. JGL has actual things to say about the unrealistic expectations of modern men that watch too much porn and of modern women who watch touch-feely romantic comedies, i.e. Scarlett Johansson, a grown woman, has a poster of “Titanic” in her room. It is to JGL’s credit not only that he took on an admittedly edgy subject but also that he does it in a reasonably well fashion. I had not seen this particular fight between a couple before and was not annoyed by it one bit. In this movie, I was impressed by that much.

Having said that, this is not a perfect movie, for as well as JGL captures the immaturity of modern romance, when he pivots the story towards a mature relationship with a woman, played by Julianne Moore, that Don Jon meets at night school the footing is far less sure. What was certainty in behavior turns to guesses. They are good guesses at least. For instance, the Julianne Moore character is a widow. So death will make a romance more serious, but can JGL explain why, or has he simply watched enough movies to know that the most sympathetic characters in screenwriting are widows.

More suspect is his decision to have Don Jon come from a blue collar Italian family. These scenes, involving none other than Tony Danza as a cursing football watching ball buster of a father who likes to eat spaghetti dinners in a wife beater, are played for comic relief at best. As before the inspiration seems to come less from real life than from movies that feature blue-collar Italian families. I’m thinking less “The Sopranos” and more “Saturday Night Fever.” I don’t think JGL is Italian. Of course, I don’t have a blue collar Italian family but I can say this at least; he got the Catholic Church wrong. Don Jon goes to church and confession every single week and yet at the end of the movie there is a joke with a punch line consisting of the character not knowing the local priest’s name on the other side of the screen. That’s simply not believable. It is the type of joke that would only be funny if you were not acquainted with the subject matter.

But over all, this is a good movie with enough laughs to sustain an enjoyable experience and enough technical proficiency and creativity to make the movie buff interested in what JGL could accomplish next. He was a bit uneven at times and swung for the fences a few more times than was necessary but I see plenty of potential. Anyway, it was his first time.