There's a lot to like about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's feature debut as Writer/Director and as starring actor.

Rating: 9/10 (26 September 2013)

(This review is based on an advanced screening at the Revere Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.)
Let's get this out of the way right from the start: if you will be offended by a movie with lots of F-bombs and/or one that's about a guy from Jersey who's addicted to porn—or more specifically, masturbating to porn —then Don Jon isn't for you. That said, there's a lot to like about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's feature debut as Writer/Director and as starring actor.
Don Jon doesn't waste any time letting us know what it's about. There's nothing subtle in an opening that shows Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Jon Martello, masturbating to porn. His matter-of-fact voice-over explains precisely what he likes about getting off to porn and why he prefers the women on the screen to actual warm-bodied women in his bed. His friends call him 'Don', though, because he manages to score 'dimes'—meaning a '10'—whenever they go out.
Enter Scarlett Johansson (for whom Gordon-Levitt wrote the role) as Barbara, a 10 in any movie, but especially in this one. It's a jolt initially to hear her accent—which some argue sounds more like one from Staten Island—but if you're not from New Jersey, you won't have a problem with it. Barbara is the game changer for Jon, perfect in every way, except for one minor problem: she's not happy about the porn.
Julianne Moore and Tony Danza round out a stellar cast that includes cameos from Channing Tatum, Anne Hathaway, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. Danza plays Jon's dad in a performance reminiscent of (and just as strong as) Robert De Niro's fatherly role in Silver Linings Playbook. Moore plays a middle-aged student in a night class with Jon. She provides an older woman foil for Jon's girlfriend/porn issues—someone other than his buddies and family to heckle and care for him. Moore gives a layered performance, ably demonstrating the disappearing effect of age when hanging out with students half her age, gracefully revealing that there is much more under the tender shell of her character Esther than Jon can possibly imagine. donjon1 Gordon-Levitt's screenplay is solid and well structured, built around themes like the fact that Jon Martello is a devout Catholic. With welcome regularity, we see Jon back on the pew with his family, followed by a weekly rendezvous in the confessional in which he itemizes his sexual transgressions to the priest on the other side—the number of times he had sex out of wedlock, how many times he masturbated to porn, etc. The next scene invariably shows him in the gym working out to the prescribed number of Hail Marys and Our Fathers (and we get to peek at just how buff Gordon-Levitt has been keeping himself). The laughs get louder every time the screenplay whips around to this place keeper, and we fall into pace with Jon and his routine as we get to know him.
Gordon-Levitt takes what should be a ridiculous premise for a movie and through strong writing and directing outputs a sincere plot. Though full of the American Pie-style humor requisite for a story about masturbation, Don Jon more importantly takes its characters (and us) somewhere—and it's not where you think. In the wasteland of cookie- cutter movie plots, Don Jon's story is a breath of fresh air—one that makes us laugh, makes us think, makes us cringe, and makes us come out wanting more from Joseph Gordon-Levitt.