Don Jon

Don Jon (2013) is about a man addicted to pornography, and its real claim is that this is not the only addiction in the film. Jon lives in New Jersey and his life consists of a few things: his body, his car, his family, church, the gym and women. He confesses every week, counts the same sins, says the same prayers and carries on. He cannot be satisfied in real relationships because the measure in his head comes from a screen. He meets a woman named Barbara. She is addicted to a screen too: romantic comedies. The cleverest thing here is that symmetry. The woman in his head is not real, and the man in hers is not either. Both are living inside a fiction, and the film treats them as equals. A third character played by Julianne Moore breaks the balance; she is the only person carrying no fiction. Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed and starred; his first feature. It received the highest age classification on first submission and was shortened in order to be released; what was cut was largely the opening montage. The editing is built on repetition: the same scenes, the same sounds, the same gestures over and over, so the addiction becomes the form. Tony Danza plays the father and the dinner table scenes are the funniest thing in it. It runs 90 minutes. Good for: character comedy, relationship films, and modern addiction. Less good for: the sexual content is explicit, the subject is uncomfortable, and the swearing is constant.