You could argue Don Jon was like a kid running in his father's shoes. It was Joseph Gordon-Levitt's first real crack at directing, and it showed. There were areas where he needed an editor, areas where he needed a re-write and further areas where he needed a steadier hand behind the camera. Regardless, it was an interesting debut which either left you cold or intrigued. I guess the best touchstone for Don Jon is Shame. Steve McQueen's altogether more harrowing desiccation of the male psyche insofar as Don, like Michael Fassbender's Brandon, suffers from a form of sex addiction, but McQueen has a steadier hand on the tiller than Gordon-Levitt, and the lighter tone to discuss a serious problem pornography's influence on the male mind seemed to jar incessantly. You could argue that it's a strangely more sanitised picture, especially when compared to its forebear. Yet still, not every film need be the best in its field. For those who get round what it wasn't, there was still plenty to take away from Don Jon. If you didn't expect something hard (stop it, you perverts) and serious, the light-hearted tone and convincing, strangely screwball performances made the whole thing seem weirdly likeable, in an odd way. Though Gordon-Levitt's Jon Martello was an odd, heightened-reality creation, he proved an excellent lead and you if you took the film on its own merits warts-and-all, you could certainly come away with new appreciation for JGL, if you didn't like him already.
Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League.
You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.
