The first hour was pretty shallow and repetitive, but it redeems itself slightly in the last 30 minutes

Rating: 4/10 (9 October 2014)

Don Jon (Joseph Gordon Levitt)is a confident, slightly arrogant Jack The Lad who is seemingly proud of his sexual prowess. Even his friends are impressed by his success with the ladies hence the reason that he got his nickname 'Don Jon'. Despite his success with the ladies, Jon finds that sleeping with women doesn't give him the satisfaction that he craves and finds that he has to watch porn several times a day in order to get 'lost in himself'. However, when he meets the gorgeous Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) whilst on a night out with his mates, he soon becomes infatuated with her and following a second 'date' with her he begins a relationship with her. Even though he's in a relationship with Barbara, Jon still can't stop watching porn and once Barbara discovers this addiction she dumps him. From this point on, Jon starts to wonder if there is more to life than porn.....
For me, this was a fairly tiresome affair for the most part. Don Jon goes out partying, sleeps around with lots of women watches porn countless times a day and then goes to see a priest to confess all of the above. This was OK the first time as it did help to understand just how troubled and shallow Jon was, but the problem is that these things seemed to just be on a loop for the majority of the first half of the film. Ironically, I think Gordon-Levitt was probably more guilty of revelling in the slutty side of things than the character he portrayed - I would say that nearly 50% of the first half was spent watching tits and ass and couples having sex. There's nothing wrong with all of that if you're watching a porn film and it's OK in a main stream film in moderation, but it did feel like Gordon-Levitt was getting a little carried away and seemed to forget about both character development and in moving the story along.
There were other issues with the film such as Jon's two mates who were just annoying for the majority of the film. Gordon-Levitt and Johansson didn't have particularly good on screen chemistry which meant I was indifferent when they broke up. Jon's family were also annoying (particularly his mother who was just unbearable at times) and it just made me cringe when I saw Jon and his dad both wearing matching white vests at every meal time. Really? I also thought it was interesting that the girl in this family (who I think was his sister) didn't speak for the first hour, but probably uttered one of the most important lines in the entire film.
There are some positives to draw from this film, but sadly they come in the last 30 minutes; Julianne Moore's character (who I admit was irritating at first) managed to be a very important character. She seems to be the only person who understands Jon and she seems to be the only person that Jon wants to learn more about. She also is successful at making him see making love as being 'reciprocal' which is a key scene in the film. Julianne Moore did save this film somewhat (both in terms of her acting and her character). Gordon-Levitt does an OK job, but I think he didn't give his own character enough depth. I kind of liked him towards the end, but for the majority of the film I just felt indifferent to him and that's really where the film fails.
Don Jon is a fairly poor film and the majority of the problems are in the first 60 minutes where the film is repetitive, shallow, and it seems to plod along without really going anywhere. It does improve in the last 30 minutes, but it didn't do enough for me making it a below average film.