Don Jon

After seeing something as gratingly powerful as Steve McQueen’s “Shame,” it perhaps occurred to Joseph Gordon-Levitt that for most, Internet porn is not as severe as a crippling sex addiction, and yet it’s prevalence suggests something much deeper about our culture.

This is nothing new. The think pieces about how it’s changing our kids’ perceptions about sex, relationships and what defines someone as attractive are everywhere. Vanity Fair wrote one just this week. The media has immense influence, and it most strongly affects those who already display a level of naiveté and arrogance.

That’s perhaps why the eponymous protagonist of Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon” is not just a narcissistic Jersey boy but also a lowest common denominator schmuck without much to his name beside his seedy browser history. In his attempt to make a film about addiction, media overdose and modern, self-centered personalities while still keeping “Don Jon” a swift, funny, 90-minute sex romp, Gordon-Levitt is somewhat grasping at straws, making the ideas in it as thin as the movie’s buff hero.

Yet JGL’s ability to make Jon disarmingly charming even as he’s playing the fool is what makes this indie comedy rise above the rest of the rom-com, media trash the movie condemns.

Jon is a bartender in Jersey with just a few things to his name: pad, ride, “bahdie,” church, “fahmily,” boys, girls, porn. Although he gets laid with ease, porn is just a part of his routine, and to him it’s genuinely better than the girls who only want to do it missionary style, don’t want to give blow jobs and have pussies that are dangerous; his words, not mine.

When he meets Barbara Sugarman (a deliciously tart Scarlett Johansson), he and his boys declare her a “dime” and he dreams that she might be the one to fulfill his sexual fantasies. Their chemistry is sharp, but is confined to a few quick “yeahs,” “babes” and make out sessions. But her plans for him involve taking a night class, getting a six-figure job as a suit and becoming the token man she imagines in all the cheesy romantic comedies she watches.

Although she can manipulate his libido just by dry humping him, he’s ultimately left unsatisfied and returns to a steady routine of porno. As his addiction worsens, an older woman in his class (Julianne Moore) tries to talk some sense into him and bring him into the real world.

Moore’s character is a key hint to the movie’s problem. Free of a thick accent and self-absorbed mentality, she explains in fairly simple terms that sex and love is a two-way thing, and his singular interaction with his computer screen isn’t cutting it. She asks if he’s ever thought to masturbate without looking at porn, and you’d think he’s stumbled on some massive revelation.

That something so obvious never occurred to Jon is where “Don Jon” veers from smartly self-aware parody to just a broad character sketch. Jon is only self-absorbed in that physically pleasuring himself is all he does. His trips to the gym, church and family dinner table don’t amount to much more than daily errands, so his obsession is really just a plot device rather than a nuanced affliction.

Compare that to Barbara’s love of romantic comedies. The fake film she watches with Jon exemplifies the worst Hollywood clichés available. Although not everyone has excellent taste in movies and most do not analyze the images in front of them, you can reasonably give the average person more credit than “Don Jon” does about their ability to recognize what is real, fake and grossly exaggerated, be that movies, porn or gratuitous Carl’s Jr. ads.

If the film had given its characters more complexity, some of the tangential themes might play out stronger. Tony Danza plays Jon’s father, a vein-bulging guido who watches nothing but football. His mother (Glenne Headley) wants only for Jon to find a girlfriend, and his sister (Brie Larson) wants only to be buried in her phone. Are these one-sided passions in these lives any different from Jon’s love of porn? Perhaps not, but at times it can be an un-earned parallel.

“Don Jon” is shot and edited with alacrity, the flickering frames and bursts of on-screen sex in Jon’s mind flash to the rhythm of club rave music. It makes for an up-tempo movie and shows JGL’s ability to grow as a director, but a better example of opulent editing and cinematography might be found in Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers.” That film makes the porno and obsession in this movie look tame.

3 stars