Don Jon turns a simple premise into a study of modern desire, and mostly earns the effort. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Jon, a man who spends his days working out, his nights having sex, and his evenings watching porn. That’s the whole setup. What follows is a film about how those habits shape him, and how they shape the people around him.
Jon is not a villain. He’s a man who has found a rhythm, and he sticks to it. His routine is efficient, predictable, and utterly empty. His girlfriend Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) is a bright, funny woman trapped in a relationship that offers her nothing. His father (Christopher Walken) is a man who wants his son to grow up, a wish Jon can’t understand. And then there’s Esther (Julianne Moore), a woman Jon meets at church whose presence forces him to see his life in a new light.
The film’s strength is in its specificity. It doesn’t preach. It simply shows a man who has built a life around pleasure, and watches as that pleasure stops being enough. Gordon-Levitt carries the film with a quiet intensity. He plays Jon as sincere, not pathetic, and that sincerity makes the character’s slow awakening feel earned.
Don Jon isn’t subtle about its subject. It opens with Jon’s morning ritual, a montage of gym work and masturbation set to upbeat music. Later, it stages a scene where Jon watches a movie with his girlfriend while she reads a book. She’s engaged with her own world; he’s lost in his screen. The film’s argument is clear: technology has created a space where we can consume without ever connecting.
This is the film’s sharpest edge. It’s a comedy, but it’s also a warning. The joke is that Jon is happy. The point is that his happiness is shallow. The film asks us to look at our own screens and wonder how much of our lives we’re spending in private, curated fantasies.
Esther enters the story as a complication. She’s older, smarter, and she sees Jon for who he is. Their scenes together are the best in the film. Moore plays Esther with warmth and patience, and her performance grounds the movie’s abstract ideas in something real. The romance isn’t a plot device. It’s the emotional core.
The film’s ending is a compromise, and it’s the weakest part. After spending an hour building tension between Jon and Esther, the story resolves itself too quickly. The final scenes feel rushed, as if the filmmakers couldn’t wait to get off the ride. It’s a shame, because the setup was promising.
Don Jon is directed by David Chase, best known for The Sopranos. His TV work is about power and violence. This film is about intimacy and its absence. The visual style is clean and modern. The editing is sharp. The score is poppy and catchy. It’s a polished package, and that polish sometimes works against it.
The film’s biggest weakness is its tone. It wants to be a comedy, a drama, and a cautionary tale. It splits the difference and lands somewhere in the middle. The humor is often forced, the drama is often overwrought, and the message is often blunt. It’s a film that knows what it wants to say, but not how to say it with grace.
Key Facts
- Title: Don Jon
- Director: David Chase
- Release Year: 2013
- Runtime: 100 minutes
- Score: 6.6/10
Comparison Table
| Element | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Gordon-Levitt is excellent | Ending feels rushed |
| Direction | Polished, modern style | Tone is inconsistent |
| Story | Specific, relatable | Romance resolved too quickly |
| Theme | Timely exploration of technology | Message is blunt |
Don Jon is a thoughtful film about a shallow man. It’s smart, funny, and occasionally moving. But it’s also flawed. The ending lets the whole thing down, and the tone struggles to hold together. It’s a film that deserves credit for asking hard questions, even when it doesn’t answer them well.
Trailer, via TIFF.
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