Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Don Jon

At his debut as a filmmaker, Joseph Gordon Levitt (already famous for his leading roles in Mysterious Skin and Brick-Dose Mortale as well as for supporting roles in The Dark Knight Rises and Inception) decides to leave nothing out by taking on the roles of director, screenwriter, and main protagonist in this Don Jon. For the uninitiated, it is the classic American romantic comedy; for cinema enthusiasts, it's already labeled as indie-porn comedy. For me, it's neither, as it reminded me a bit of those little notes with love/cosmo/universe quotations that come with Baci Perugina: sayings that at first glance may seem like banal and clichéd phrases thrown in just for the sake of it, but which perhaps, at least according to the authors' intentions, were meant to say something deeper.

For me, Gordon Levitt's directorial premiere is just like that: seemingly frivolous but perhaps much, much deeper and more interesting than it lets on.

But enough talk: what's this Don Jon about? Let's say the film tells us the story of Jon Martello Jr., Don Jon to his friends, a classic prototype of an alpha male completely engulfed in his routinized life made of gym, cars, church, family, friends, girlfriends, and porn ad libitum.

Don Jon's life seems to follow a cyclic pattern just like the film's temporal narrative which marks the typical days of Jon, all culminating in Don's addiction to Porn Movies. Porn seems to have such a central role in the 21st-century Don Giovanni's world that Don often prefers it over real sex, considering self-eroticism from Youporn (actually more than self-eroticism, the scenes that trigger the auto-erotic act) as the perfect, ideal form of sex, without imperfections, pure, clean (the obsession with cleanliness and hygiene is another characteristic of Don fabulously played by Gordon Levitt).

Things will change, however, when during yet another evening spent at a disco, Jon, with the aim of picking up girls to end the day in style, meets Barbara Sugerman (played by Scarlett Johansson), repeatedly described by the incorrigible playboy as "the most beautiful creature of creation," who will be a real bolt from the blue for Jon's existence.

In a clear and open "challenge with himself," Jon will try everything to "possess" the charms of the beautiful Barbara, also an archetype of 21st-century femininity full of vices and—forgive me the term—a desire for castration, only to discover, once having made her his own, that she wasn't what he truly wanted, that porn was still better than real sex and that Barbara only completed his "stereotype" but not his true self.

The knots will come to a head and will only unravel towards the end of the film with the entrance of the mature Esther (Julianne Moore), who will show Jon the way (materially and spiritually) for redemption not only from sin (addressed several times in the hilarious confession booth scenes during which the equivalent for the absolution of erotic and autoerotic sins will be counted in the number of pater noster and ave maria to recite daily) but will also allow, through her vision of "love as sharing" to completely overturn Jon's set of values, bringing him a step closer to "happiness" enabling him to achieve true "self-realization" and breaking the plasticy, artificial, virtual world constituted by his being "macho" rather than being a man, his daily and ordinary routine (a significant scene is when he disrupts his steps to a bodybuilding salon dedicating himself to a more "healthy" basketball game) and obviously porn, finding a dimension where sex and love reconcile.

Levitt's first attempt behind the camera is thus a more mature and profound film than it appears to be, tackling with courage and maybe a pinch of (healthy) naivety quite a few big themes: the dynamics of couple relationships in the society of appearances, the overlap between the real and virtual dimensions of the digital era, the vision of love as sharing capable of breaking the routine that makes us "autonomous" of modern post-industrial society and the dependence on online porn of course.

A good number of "heavy" themes indeed, maybe even too many for a film of "just" 90 minutes that flows smoothly; perhaps this is the biggest flaw of Don Jon, touching on interesting elements, so interesting that each of them might have needed more in-depth exploration than granted in a 90-minute movie.

Along with this minor flaw, it should also be considered a certain "directorial naivety" from a first-time Levitt who doesn't always manage (intentionally?) to shock by bringing adequately representative images or scenes of the themes addressed to the big screen: porn and "sex" here are only whispered and partly for this reason the film in the middle loses the bite, that almost "shock" charge of the first 15 minutes.

For the sake of truth, to these small details that do not allow this Don Jon to forcefully enter the Cult Movies of this decade (or...maybe, but never say never) other decidedly successful directorial choices make a counterpoint: the sound of the Mac introducing Don into the world of XXX videos, the caricatured portrait of Jon's family, an archetype of Italian-American identity, a hint of meta-cinematography in the cinema scene seen at the cinema and the superb triumph of plastic, the fake, the advertising that accompanies the audience's entry into Jon's world at the beginning of the film are all exquisitely commendable elements from a directional point of view. But overall, even in light of these elements, perhaps this film is missing something.

Should I say it?

I'll say it: perhaps a bit more audacity would have been beneficial.

But in any case, criticizing such a debut is undoubtedly a crime.