Problematic – 3 Types of Reviews

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2017)

I put the reviews of Don Jon into 3 categories which, paraphrased are 1) "The film is shallow and sleazy and I hate it"; 2) "The film is shallow and sleazy and that's great because it's telling it like it is – it's an accurate "slice of life" story and I love it"; 3) "The first 95% of the film is shallow and sleazy, but at the very end, it rejects the sleaze for something better and I like it."
#3 is what Gordon-Levitt (writer & director) was aiming for. However, that approach has been the standard out of Hollywood for decades and it fails. For the reviewers in categories in 1 & 3 above, they already recognize the shallowness and sleaze of that lifestyle. For reviewers in 2 above, by far the largest group, they view the 95% about shallowness and sleaze and that just reinforces their view that that's the way life is.
What's needed is a romance movie that has heart and soul and beauty throughout – before the 1960s that was common especially in the '30s & '40s. But beginning in the '60s a downward spiral for "romance" movies started with each year being worse – each year the difference between Hollywood romance and porn shrunk with many describing most such fare as soft porn and many producers admitting they were aiming to produce soft porn as the best way to make money. Maybe that's why LaLaLand, which was a throwback to an earlier era, was so well received, but even it seemed like a pale shadow of Demy's films which in turn were a pale shadow of the romance films (and life) of the '30s & '40s.
Gordon-Levitt is a very good actor. Regarding technique, he can write and is a good director. However, he doesn't seem to have anything to write about. Maybe shallowness and sleaze is all he's experienced, first or even second hand. His efforts have no heart or soul or depth. Modern action adventure movies are well done, but modern movies about the relationship between a man and a woman too often are just soft porn.
The formula was wrong but to make it work, the audience should at the very least have been rooting for Jon to go with Esther (Julianne Moore) because of her inner beauty and heart, etc. – I knew in advance that's how it should go, but felt nothing except that she was annoying – not Julianne's fault – it was 100% the fault of the empty script. Jon only rises a few levels, out of about 50, from the shallowness and sleaze at the end as that's as high as Gordon-Levitt's vision can see. I don't think the new movie writer generation is capable of improving so the only solution seems to be to watch films from a different era.