Don Jon. (18.)
Directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Glenne Headley, Brie Larson and Tony Danza. 90 mins
A recent social study, carried in the scientific journal the Metro, reported that an alarming number of young males, who have grown up immersed in a culture of pornography, are disappointed and disillusioned with the reality of sexual activity. Actual women are a pale comparison to the airbrushed hard bodies while their vigorous gymnastic contortions are feats well beyond their own huff puffed efforts.
This is the subject of Gordon-Levitt’s first film as writer/ director. He plays a New Jersey Casanova who has a new girl every weekend but finds it inferior to congress with his laptop. His narcissism is total: he is obsessed with keeping his flat clean, his car cool and his body sculpted. Everything has to be just so, until Scarlett Johansson shimmies into his path. While he represents a modern archetype, she is a very traditional figure, the castrating girlfriend. The script is pushing the line that she is a product of an addiction to romantic comedies but the determined way she turns the stud into a meek puppy dog through graded sexual access is a story that surely predates the Hollywood romcom.
JG-L’s film is an odd mix. In places it is bold and surprising and it raises lots of awkward laughs of recognition. It entertains while gently getting audiences to ponder their attitudes. A lot of it though is quite startlingly crude. The characters are sketch show simplistic and the portrayal of Italian American culture is the most basic stereotype, with men sitting around in white t-shirts and telling each other to shuderfucup.
If the film is trying to make a subtle point about how cultures find themselves subconsciously roosting in Hollywood pigeonholes than it should have spelt it out like it did the other points. Watching a top quality cast playing such two dimensional characters is disconcerting, like an RSC production of The Only Way Is Essex.
Directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Glenne Headley, Brie Larson and Tony Danza. 90 mins
A recent social study, carried in the scientific journal the Metro, reported that an alarming number of young males, who have grown up immersed in a culture of pornography, are disappointed and disillusioned with the reality of sexual activity. Actual women are a pale comparison to the airbrushed hard bodies while their vigorous gymnastic contortions are feats well beyond their own huff puffed efforts.
This is the subject of Gordon-Levitt’s first film as writer/ director. He plays a New Jersey Casanova who has a new girl every weekend but finds it inferior to congress with his laptop. His narcissism is total: he is obsessed with keeping his flat clean, his car cool and his body sculpted. Everything has to be just so, until Scarlett Johansson shimmies into his path. While he represents a modern archetype, she is a very traditional figure, the castrating girlfriend. The script is pushing the line that she is a product of an addiction to romantic comedies but the determined way she turns the stud into a meek puppy dog through graded sexual access is a story that surely predates the Hollywood romcom.
JG-L’s film is an odd mix. In places it is bold and surprising and it raises lots of awkward laughs of recognition. It entertains while gently getting audiences to ponder their attitudes. A lot of it though is quite startlingly crude. The characters are sketch show simplistic and the portrayal of Italian American culture is the most basic stereotype, with men sitting around in white t-shirts and telling each other to shuderfucup.
If the film is trying to make a subtle point about how cultures find themselves subconsciously roosting in Hollywood pigeonholes than it should have spelt it out like it did the other points. Watching a top quality cast playing such two dimensional characters is disconcerting, like an RSC production of The Only Way Is Essex.
