Butler's Cinema Scene

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johanssen

“DON JON” My rating: B+ (Opening wide of Sept. 27)

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Former child actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has displayed his grown-up chops in recent years in everything from big-budget sci-fi tent pole pictures to edgy indie fare.

His feature writing/directing debut, “Don Jon,” falls into the latter category if only because of the subject matter.  Basically, it’s a comedy about masturbation.

It’s raunchy.  Also very, very funny. And beneath the lewdness, “Don Jon” has something like a heart of gold.

Gordon-Levitt appears in just about every shot as Jon, a cocky Jersey Shore Guido with a formidable reputation with the women. He’s got the look made famous by MTV – ripped torso and a ‘do that’s borderline skinhead on the sides, while the hair on top is combed straight back and gelled into a tornado-proof finish.

You might view Jon as this generation’s Tony Manero (the John Travolta character in “Saturday Night Fever”) with one major exception:  Jon has access to the internet, which means he can watch porn any time he likes. Which is pretty much all the time.

As Jon explains early on in voiceover narration – and he’s just being honest here – while he loves doin’ the ladies, he’s never quite at ease in the sack. He’s too conscious of the need to please, too uptight about the stuff he doesn’t want to do (cunnilingus, which disgusts him) and too disappointed about the stuff many girls won’t do (fellatio).

Which is where porn comes in. Snuggled all warm and naked in front of his computer, Jon can get his rocks off to just about any sexual scenario he can think of, and he doesn’t have to cuddle afterward. This guy buys Kleenex in bulk.

Father and son: Tony Danza, Gordon-Levitt

Gordon-Levitt’s screenplay centers on his wooing of Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), whom he spies at a local disco and is instantly smitten with. She’s a knockout redhead – we see her through Jon’s eyes, moving in seductive slow motion…and chewing her ever-present wad of gum in slo-mo, too.

But she’s no pushover. She makes Jon wait. And wait. And wait.

In the meantime Barbara does a reclamation job on her beau, urging him to take a community college course so that he can get out of his dead-end job as a bartender. She also declares that he must no longer clean his apartment himself (he’s a neat freak) because housework is, in her eyes, unmanly.

And when she catches him viewing porn, Barbara lays down the law: Lose the smut or lose me.

At which point Jon realizes that he’s addicted to porn. He shares his dilemma with the middle-aged Esther (Julianne Moore), another student in his junior college class, and though she has troubles of her own (he first notices her when she’s weeping inconsolably in classroom doorway) she proves

Julianne Moore

herself a font of tough-love wisdom, cutting through Jon’s self-delusional b.s. to get at the heart of his problem.

Can true love be far behind?

As both actor and director, Gordon-Levitt shows impeccable comic timing. There are some great conversations between Jon and his skirt-obsessed pals (Rob Brown, Jeremy Luke).

Even better are the Sunday dinners (the guys wear white wifebeater undershirts) in which we revel in the profane family dynamic provided by Dad (an uproarious Tony Danza), Mom (Glenne Headly), and iPhone-addicted little sister Monica (Brie Larson).

And Jon’s regular Sunday confessions to his priest become a giddy litany of solo sexual incidents (apparently the kid is capable of a half dozen orgasms every day – ah, the stamina of youth).

Gordon-Levitt doesn’t dwell on the pornographic images which so fascinate his character. These zip by in furious montages (lots of boobies, no genitalia) that initially are shocking but eventually become a sort of moving wallpaper. Still, some viewers will find that “Don Jon” has a high squirm factor.

The film has it both ways, exposing the psychological fallout of porn addiction (a genuine medical phenomenon) but making us laugh.

And in the end, it’s a bona fide love story.

| Robert W. Butler