don jon

according to relativity media, don jon is about jon martello (joseph gordon-levitt) is a strong, handsome, good old fashioned guy. his buddies call him don jon due to his ability to "pull" a different woman every weekend, but even the finest fling doesn't compare to the bliss he finds alone in front of the computer watching pornography. barbara sugarman (scarlett johansson) is a bright, beautiful, good old fashioned girl. raised on romantic hollywood movies, she's determined to find her prince charming and ride off into the sunset. wrestling with good old fashioned expectations of the opposite sex, jon and barbara struggle against a media culture full of false fantasies to try and find true intimacy in this unexpected comedy written and directed by joseph gordon-levitt.

ever since i've seen him in mysterious skin, i know that there will be a series of outstanding flicks that would feature his immense talent. true enough, joseph gordon-levitt featured in some of my recent favorites such as 50-50, inception and 500 days of summer. but what better way to showcase this talent than to come up with his own handsomely written and directed movie! it was a successful directorial debut and he even got nods for his first screenplay. the man's a genius!  

i absolutely enjoyed the film. at first, i thought that it'd be like another pedestrian romcom where jgl's character, a ladies man, would finally find his dreamgirl and settle the way a traditional fairytale would be resolved. but it was far from that. i liked that jon did not end up with the perfect girl and was not "dramatically changed" in the process. it also unabashedly went into an unlikely pairing between jon, a super confident man and esther (the great julianne moore), a grieving middle-aged woman. it was also a satirical take on catholicism and how grave sins don't differ with not-so-grave ones when doing penance. moreover, it effectively discussed porn addiction without toilet humor or unwarranted kitsch.
   

i liked the way it did not have a happy ending. it's definitely not a date movie anyway. but one can sense that there's a world out there to be discovered by jon as he continues to explore other facets of his relationship with esther.

one good flick and i'm looking forward to jgl's next project.