A man's journey from 2-dimensional pornography toward 3-dimensional emotion.

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2015)

= CONTAINS SPOILERS = In Don Jon, the main character, Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an aggressive man obsessed with pornography and one night stands who meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), who Jon describes as a perfect 10. Barbara wants Jon to change, so she urges him to start going to night school to get a degree and never watch pornography again. Jon prefers porn to his relationships with real women because the imagery in the pornography that that Jon watches is more fulfilling than his very short, sexual relationships with the women he takes home and to bed.
When Jon confesses his sins each week, (which revolve around masturbation and pre-marital sex) the Hail Mary's that his priest assigns are said by Jon, in the gym as a way for him to count his reps while lifting. This method of channeling his penance builds his body, which in turn, helps him in his conquests and the club and bring home more women for more unfulfilling sexual relationships; an vicious circle of self-deceptive behavior. This circle of behavior is reinforced by the editing and the sequence of shots – very short camera shots are stitched together so that cuts occur every few seconds, and the pattern of Jon's life is relentlessly clear – dinner with the family, club life, sex, church, gym – over and over again.
The theme of Don Jon is a man's need to connect with someone other than himself. Perhaps it that frustration that causes Jon to be so angry and aggressive while driving and relating to his father, played by Tony Danza. The music in Don Jon is used as a wonderful device to share both the turmoil and serenity in Jon's life. In the club, the hip hop is so loud, it drives the people to a frenzy and into each other's arms and beds. Outside the club, the music is soft and swells perfectly whenever he has a real moment with Barbara.
Barbara's urging Jon to go to school does change him, but not in the way she had hoped. After Barbara and Jon do not work as a couple, Jon meets a classmate, Ester, beautifully portrayed by Julianne Moore, who is also searching for a connection after the loss of her husband and son. Although the relationship starts like many others in Jon's life with a one night stand, several weeks later, they begin to open up and relate to each other. After sharing that she has lost her husband and son in a car crash, Jon shares that he enjoys porn more than his relationships with real women because he is able to lose himself, which does not happen when he is having sex with the women he brings home. Ester lightly confronts Jon with the concept that 'porn has nothing to do with real women [-] they're just pretending." After this conversation with Ester, he is able to discover that his view of sex through porn is two-dimensional.
Ester helps Jon understand this by saying she wants to lose herself too, but not in a dissociative way, but in a wave of emotion in a secure space created by having a real connection with the person that you are having sex with. After opening up for the first time about his relationship with porn, Jon is now open to this experience when he has sex with Ester the second time. This time, no music, just the silent connection between two people totally relating to each other in an honest way and by being able to experience the person he is with instead of simply focusing on the sex, Jon discovers a third dimension of sex, the feeling of love for a woman.
Once Jon is able to truly care for a woman as a person with complex feelings, desires and conflicts that are similar to his own, the character of Jon changes in nearly every way; he dresses in a more mature and secure style, changes his hair, and as his anger subsides, he changes is outlook on life.
In the past, I had avoided watching Don Jon because I had heard that the plot revolved around pornography and did not think that would make for an interesting movie. Now, after seeing the movie that I was resistant to, Don Jon brought to me a new view of intimate relationships among men and women and the pornography that can confuse everyone who searches for and talks about love.