MysterionMuffles Posted October 22, 2013 Posted October 22, 2013 Written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Don Jon is about a porn addict who falls in love with a woman who's addicted to romance movies. For his first effort at writing a movie, I think JGL did a tremendous job at creating this epic film! And when I say epic, it has nothing to do with wild car chases or explosions, I mean it is epic on the personal scale. Even though Don can take home any woman he wants and have copious amounts of sex, the real thing just doesn't add up to porn. It is that lack of meaning in his interactions that he begins to thrive for and he finally finds and dates this woman who just so happens to be addicted to romance films. This unlikely pair and their relationship illustrates just how diminishing people's rationality really is when they are exposed to two art forms that distort their reality on sex and romance. Through this, Don, I think, goes through one of the best self knowledge journeys in recent cinema. So not only is the writing solid because of its vulnerability and philosophical truth about sexual behaviour, but the directing also has a strong emphasis on repetition and rituals. Very often, you will see Don repeat the cycle of: bring a woman home, watch porn when she falls asleep, do his bed in the morning, go to the gym where he recites prayers for breaths between reps, and most importantly; goes to church on the weekend. It's a minor spoiler, but he goes to the confession booth every Sunday to confess about having sex out of wedlock and having watched porn and masturbated 30+ times during that week. Whatever the number is, the priest will always give him an X amount of prayers to say, and for a while Don just thinks that's all it takes to quell his inner battle. Eventually of course, he discovers the fallacy of this rinse and repeat cycle, and learns more about what it takes to have a genuine relationship with women. It's an independant film so I don't know if it's in every possible theatre (AS IT SHOULD), but if you can catch this flick, I highly reccomend it. Check out the trailer right here!
In the belly of the beast Posted October 23, 2013 Posted October 23, 2013 Thanks for the recommendation. Looks like I'll have to add this to my backlog of movies to watch. If there is an FDR film club, this would be a prime candidate for nomination.
MysterionMuffles Posted October 23, 2013 Author Posted October 23, 2013 Hope you enjoy. Yes there is an FDR film club, it's called this forum section and the chat room we talk about films sometimes in the chat if you're ever around there.
Julien Posted July 19, 2014 Posted July 19, 2014 Thanks for sharing. For some reason, this post didn't come up when I searched "Don Jon" on the FDR forums. I only found it after posting my own recommendation and paging through the forum. The movie made a strong impression on me too and I feel it illustrates many topics discussed on FDR.
MysterionMuffles Posted July 23, 2014 Author Posted July 23, 2014 yeah weird, when you posted I was curious to see if I ever made the post before but it wouldnt show up in the search results.
J. D. Stembal Posted July 23, 2014 Posted July 23, 2014 Thanks for the recommendation. Based on the trailer I saw, it deemed a definite pass. If it addresses self-knowledge at all, I am all for watching it.
Josh F Posted September 12, 2014 Posted September 12, 2014 great film, and Don's family is just..... I got a cousin who's exactly like Don and they nailed the family.
MysterionMuffles Posted September 12, 2014 Author Posted September 12, 2014 On 7/23/2014 at 1:42 AM, EndTheUsurpation said: Thanks for the recommendation. Based on the trailer I saw, it deemed a definite pass. If it addresses self-knowledge at all, I am all for watching it. Sure, he becomes self aware of his habit and what he needs to do to stop it.
J. D. Stembal Posted September 13, 2014 Posted September 13, 2014 On 9/12/2014 at 10:58 PM, Rainbow Jamz said: Sure, he becomes self aware of his habit and what he needs to do to stop it. I ended up watching the movie a few times. Here are some of my thoughts about the movie, with some spoilers: Reveal hidden contents The parts that struck me the most were when Jon was interacting with his family over dinner, and how his sister is constantly texting on her phone and not speaking to anyone. I was wondering what she was texting, probably something like, "Holy fuck, I want to kill my whole family." Also, I liked the scenes where he brings his girlfriend over to meet the family, mom and dad approve, and then he goes over to his girlfriend's parent's house, the mother is drinking, there's no father introduced, and they hand Jon a baby so they can see how manly he looks holding it. This is all Jon really needs to know to form a thorough evaluation of his girlfriend, yet he can't see it because "She's a dime!" It is rather fortunate that he did have a porno addiction that repulses her, otherwise he would have been fucked for life. His girlfriend is clearly what Stefan calls an estrogen-based parasite. There is another important point about the movie. Neither of his friends are very critical of women, specifically his girlfriend, until after the break up. In other words, if Jon had ended up marrying the parasite, his friends would have had no capability to warn him against it. However, one of his friends comes over to his pad unannounced to ask him how he's doing when he hears about Jon punching out a stranger's car window. At least, there is a scant amount of self-knowledge within his circle of friends. The moral of the story has less to do with beating your meat to professional vixens and more to do with realistically looking at the values of the family, the church, and the people with whom you hang. The message of the movie would have been more powerful if they had delved more deeply into the hypocrisy of the church and his friends. Overall, the movie succeeds as a morality play, but it's not about pornography. The porno addiction is just incidental to Jon's life. The movie is actually about his family.
MysterionMuffles Posted September 13, 2014 Author Posted September 13, 2014 yep! great review man. I agree, if they explored more of how worthless his confessions were, that'd be huge. I guess the implicit thing though is how crappy his family is. It was portrayed quite well that that's the kind of woman they would approve of. Furthermore, I loved how Jon mentioned breaking up with Sally and his mom gets upset about how she was perfect for him. And his dad is all like "look what you're doing to your mother" or something to that effect. It spoke volumes of their rank narcissism and utter disregard of Jon's needs and preferences. No wonder he didn't know how to pick em. His parents are almost the same template. Choosing beauty over brains only to be arguing over the dinner table years later about not watching sports instead of connecting. Then you got the sister silent all this time, maybe she was texting about her disappointment in her family, which is also probably she was able to deliver the most crucial line in the movie.
Josh F Posted September 13, 2014 Posted September 13, 2014 I couldn't agree more with that assessment. In fact, if anything the porn addiction was a byproduct of his lack of intimacy, not the cause of it. The people advertising the film didn't understand it, in my opinion.
MysterionMuffles Posted September 13, 2014 Author Posted September 13, 2014 Joseph Gordon-Levitt must have understood it at an unconscious level, hence he wrote it the way he did.
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