Don Jon Review

[Westside Steve]

Don Jon

Relativity Media

R 90 min

 

I'll be honest. Had I known the plot of this new pseudo- romantic faux insightful comedy written and directed by Joseph Gordon Levitt I probably would have skipped it. Now I've always thought this kid had talent. He was good in 3rd Rock from the Sun and has performed well later in major release films. Casting himself as a stud may be an ego thing. As a matter of fact he’s gotten a bit odd looking lately. But it’s his directorial debut so I guess if he sees himself as hot stuff.

 

The basis of this is only secondarily about romance, in the well-traveled vein of The Taming of the Shrew in Reverse. You know the drill, the hot young man who can have any woman he wants but winds up with a dame who leads him around by the snoot and has a romantic epiphany. Blah blah blah. Of course in the traditional genre the man would be at odds with his own desires to chase every woman he sees. Not here. Our hero is obsessed not with other women and a foot loose and fancy free lifestyle, no indeed. This guy spends most of his time, now let me see how I can say this delicately, watching computer pornography and, uh, taking the situation in hand if you know what I mean. Seriously, that’s the deal. He likes beating his meat better than the hundreds of women he seduces. Sound like an interesting treatment? Nah.

Of course you will expect Jon (Levitt) , to be shallow and obnoxious (and so he is) but this guy and about everyone else here are such unrealistic caricatures that it’s nearly impossible to feel empathy or hope for redemption. Whether it’s writing or direction or both not one character rings true. Not the parents not his friends and certainly not his love interest seem realistic at all. Jon obsesses over, his physical fitness, his friends, his Church, his parents and pornography.

 

So after this many years of sleeping with women no lower than at 8 on his scale he falls in love with such an annoying bitch and since that premise fails so does the movie.

Also I didn’t buy the counter romance with Julianne Moore who is surprisingly dowdy here despite her no bullshit attitude. And the dead husband and kid hook seems to have been forced into the plot. Why? Nobody spends the time to make it work.

 

The whole thing is unpleasant to the point of ruining any humor and lacking in any kind of insight beyond appealing to guys obsessed over, uh, raking their jakes.

A disappointing debut for the kid.

 

D+

WSS