Review of Don Jon (2013) by Jinringa — 30 Sep 2013

I thought it was a smart, funny, scathing, but ultimately kind indictment of douche bro society.

The repetitiveness and shallowness of man child Jon's existence speaks loudly to my millenial sensibilities. A victim of a self centered father and over accommodating mother, Jon is a self centered douche bag, whose only goal in life is to have meaningless fun. The blank faces on Jon's family during church and his road rage on the way there speak towards the emptiness of being nominally religious. The meaningless confession of sins, the meaningless prayers, all contribute to Jon's status as a shallow guy who doesn't really care about anything but banging an equally shallow and ridiculously hot girl and then spanking it to some meticulously selected pornography.

I think the fact that Barbara isn't actually a good person is a really important part of the film. That neither party in the Jon/Barbara relationship is actually that likable, despite both of them being very good looking, is pretty refreshing.

I really liked that Jon isn't actually that likable. He's charming, but he's a self centered dick with nothing really to say. And then he grows and he's still kind of a dick and he doesn't really have that much to say, but he is less self centered and I think that's a lot more honest than most other films.

I think attacking the tendency to be self centered through porn addiction was really clever. Self centeredness is kind of this internal thing with tons of symptoms, but it's really hard to pull at something and make a difference. With Barbara it manifests as manipulativeness, which I think is a really hard thing to make a person aware of in a meaningful way. With porn addiction it's a pretty straight shot to, you have a problem because you can't get off without porn.

I enjoyed it, I liked watching Jon struggle and grow, I liked that the ultimate love interest is really screwed up for totally believable reasons, I liked that no one is actually that likable. It feels like reality, but slightly prettier, as opposed to fantasy.