Don Jon
ドン・ジョン
Discussed in the Journal
JournalThere Is Always Another Man in the RoomStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
A New Jersey bartender prefers porn to the women he sleeps with; an older widow teaches him the difference.
Jon Martello, a young Italian-American bartender in New Jersey, is known as Don Jon for his easy success with women. His life runs on a routine: the gym, his flat, which he keeps spotless, his car, church with his family, and pornography, which he watches constantly and prefers to sex. Real women, he feels, never measure up.
At a club he meets Barbara Sugarman, beautiful and from a well-off family, who turns down a one-night stand. Jon wants her anyway. She insists on a proper relationship, and for more than a month they do not sleep together. She pushes him to take an evening class so he can build a career outside the service industry, and he sits through the romantic films she loves, which he considers fantasy. His parents adore her. When they finally sleep together, he is still unsatisfied. She catches him watching porn and he claims it was a joke email from a friend; when she later finds it in his browser history, she ends the relationship.
In his class Jon has met Esther, an older woman he once found crying alone, who saw the porn on his phone and later showed him an erotic film she believes shows sex more honestly. After the break-up they begin sleeping together. She asks why he loves porn. He says he can lose himself in it as he never does with a partner, and that he has watched it since he was a child. She challenges him to go a week without it, and he cannot. His sex, she tells him, has been all about himself. Then she tells him that her husband and son were killed in a car crash fourteen months earlier. Their honesty draws them close, and for the first time sex with another person means something to him.
Jon tells his priest he has stopped watching porn, and is disillusioned when the priest does not acknowledge the change. His sister Monica tells their parents that Barbara only wanted someone she could control. Jon apologises to Barbara for lying and tells her that her expectations were impossible too; she tells him not to call again. He and Esther, neither interested in conventional marriage, begin seeing each other, and lose themselves together.
Starring
Joseph Gordon-Levittas Jon Martello Jr.
A New Jersey bartender known as Don Jon, who prefers pornography to the women he sleeps with.
Jon Martello Jr.’s story
Jon lives by a routine of gym, flat, car, church and women, and prefers pornography to all of them. When Barbara turns him down, he finds her on Facebook and courts her on her terms: a month without sex, an evening class, the romantic films he thinks are fantasy. Sleeping with her at last leaves him unsatisfied. Caught watching porn, he calls it a joke email; when she finds his browser history, she leaves him. At the class he sleeps with Esther and tells her he can lose himself in porn, and has watched it since childhood; he cannot go a week without it. When she tells him her husband and son were killed, they grow close, and sex means something to him for the first time. He apologises to Barbara, calls her demands impossible too, and begins seeing Esther.
Scarlett Johanssonas Barbara Sugarman
A beautiful woman who loves romantic films and wants Jon to become the man she has in mind.
Barbara Sugarman’s story
Barbara, from a well-off family, flirts with Jon at a club but turns down a one-night stand. When he finds her on Facebook she sets the terms: a proper relationship, more than a month without sex, an evening class to get him out of the service industry, and the romantic films she loves. His parents adore her. She tells him that cleaning his own flat is beneath him and that her family's maid should do it. When she catches him watching porn, she accepts his story of a joke email; when she finds it in his browser history, she ends it. When Jon apologises for lying but calls her expectations impossible, she tells him that a man should make any sacrifice for the woman he loves, and not to call her again.
Julianne Mooreas Esther
An older classmate at Jon's evening course, grieving the husband and son she lost in a car crash.
Esther’s story
Esther is an older student on Jon's evening course, whom he finds crying alone; sitting beside him, she sees the porn on his phone. Later she shows him an erotic film she believes shows sex more honestly. After his break-up she sleeps with him in her car and asks why he loves porn, then challenges him to go a week without it, which he cannot. His sex, she tells him, has been all about himself; if he wants to lose himself, it has to be in someone else. At her home she suggests a bath together, then starts crying and does not join him: her husband and son were killed in a car crash fourteen months earlier. Neither she nor Jon wants a conventional marriage; they begin seeing each other, and lose themselves together.
Tony Danzaas Jon Martello Sr.
Jon's father, who is smitten with Barbara and hopes his son will marry her.
Brie Larsonas Monica Martello
Jon's younger sister, who bluntly tells the family that Barbara only wanted someone she could control.
Why it matters
Don Jon is a comedy about pornography that turns out to be about attention: what it takes to look at another person and actually see her. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who wrote, directed and starred in it, his first feature as a director, sets two fantasies side by side. Jon's porn promises sex without another person in it; Barbara's romantic films promise a man who will give up everything for her, and she expects Jon to become him. The film is even-handed about both, and its sympathy goes to Esther, a widow in mourning, who asks Jon the one question neither fantasy can answer. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. The question it leaves is whether a habit built on watching can become a way of being with someone, and what a person has to lose to find out.