Review of Don Jon (2013) by Spiralus — 01 Oct 2013

This movie is not for the feint of heart or the "grown up"-minded. It's probably not for church goers. It's probably not REALLY for main-stream consumers, macho boys and candy princess girls.

It's not for any of these because it is, at it's heart, an attempt to savage the values that all these groups hold dear. It shines a hot and otherwise absentee light the cancer of over-sexualization. It shows, subtly at times and baldly at others, how consumer driven, sexualized, culture has reached it's tendrils into every-day life, down even into the language we use, how we think and what we think we need.

No character is safe, even the heroine, who chastises the male lead for being "addicted to porn" does so while lighting a joint. Entertaining, lighthearted and even touching, this movie, like it's main character, seems dumb on the outside but turns out to be intelligent after all.

In fact it's really intelligent, which will hurt it's reviews. It's irreverence (which I love) makes it's target market small and it's high bar of entry (most people won't "get it") makes it's target audience smaller still.

I took off a point the ending feeling rushed, but truly, I laughed my head off the whole time. If you're not in any of those listed groups, or if you're genuinely interested in gender roles, feminism, or sociology, you need to see this.