Don Jon

Don Jon is a new movie that focuses on a young man, Jon, as he goes through his life full of adult movies and casual hookups.  He has a couple friends, a sharp looking Chevelle, and a family.  He also attends church regularly and confesses his sins, but it hardly stops him from continuing.  Despite his highly active sex life, he finds greater joy in adult films, citing that they offer more excitement than the real thing.  However, his life gets more complicated when he sees the attractive Barbara, and immediately falls in love.  However, she’s an attractive woman who demands that Jon conform to fit into her life, and this becomes a central issue in the movie.  Does Jon want this girl enough to give up his lifestyle and to give up his biggest passion?

Not exactly the typical "love at first sight" scene, but not at all out of the ordinary.

The story here is surprisingly interesting, despite the racy overtones the movie uses with pornography and casual sex.  At the heart of this story there are a couple key themes: the process of growing up, and the battle between fantasy and reality.  Barbara really brings some conflict to the movie with her love of Hollywood romances where the man gives up everything for his love, which she projects onto Jon, while his fantasies revolve around pornography and the more erotic, physical side of relationships.  Watching the two of them is interesting, because they each embody a distinctive, yet separate form of unrealistic expectations of their partner, and the conflict really adds the intrigue to the story. 

Right off the bat, you can tell he wants to, and she wants him to want to.

The characters are fairly straightforward, but that isn’t a bad thing.  Jon is a “typical” guy, and Barbara is what many would expect from an extremely attractive woman who can afford to be picky with her boyfriends.  They are both a little rough around the edges, and they definitely are at their best when they first meet, and Jon wants nothing more than to sleep with Barbara, and Barbara wants nothing more than to make Jon work for it.

The father is one of the more entertaining side characters in the film, and one of the few that actually had some sort of presence in the story.

However, this movie really has some faults.  Namely, it tries to deliver a moral of sorts but it really doesn’t present itself in a way that makes that point entirely accessible to the audience.  It makes the movie feel a little excessive at times, and that they could have done away with some of the extremes and still get the point across, if not better without all the distractions.  Around the middle of the second act, there is a new female character that is introduced, and she adds a great deal of wisdom to the situation, but she herself is a drug-addled, manic depressive who has casual sex with Jon later in the film.  This just doesn’t seem to fit, since she is depressed over the loss of her family, so why is she casually hooking up with some random guy?  Arguments could be made but it felt somewhat forced without explanation.  Another big issue is just that several side characters were introduced and never really used in the story to any major extent, so why even bother having them?

One of the little gems that you learn along the way: you can get away with anything as long as you go to church, and then confess your sins. That makes it all OK.

Overall, this movie is surprisingly decent, but not stellar in any major area.  I would have to say that it is rather refreshing to see a change in the typical “romance” formula, and a story where it’s not about heartwarming romance, but realizing that what you thought was a heartwarming romance might not be exactly what you expected, and how to deal with that reality that sets in after the fantasy is lost.  However, it does have some trouble delivering this message in the midst of the provocative material that fills the movie, as well as the attempts to utilize characters that have no real place in the film outside of the odd, cliché, “fratboy” style attitude and jokes.  That doesn’t make this movie a pass, but it does get in its own way a bit and doesn’t provide the sense of closure at the end that one might want.  For a first attempt at writing, it’s really a decent start, and it does a good job of not conforming to traditional expectations, but that also works against it in some key areas.

Good:

-Some humorous moments.

-Great message in the story and characters.

-More "down-to-earth" approach to the romance in the film.

Bad:

-Little over-the-top with the use of sex, as well as the inclusion of adult films.  Only needed to let the audience know that he liked it, not make it a big distraction.

-Ending leaves a bit to be desired.

Scully Rating: 7 out of 10