Genre: Romantic Comedy-Drama
Premise: A young, cocky New Jersey man obsessed with porn finds his obsession challenged when he meets a girl who tells him it’s either porn or her.
About: As many of you know, this is long-time actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) first foray into writing and directing. The film played strongly at Sundance, inspiring a bidding war which Relativity ultimately won, under the condition that it be released wide (over 2000 theaters). Now for those of you who don’t know the distribution business, this is a big deal. Rarely does a film that doesn’t have huge stars or a big budget get a wide release. Typically, as an indie, you start out small, anywhere from 15-200 theaters, and then if you do well, you keep expanding. So for them to bust this tiny film out into 2400 theaters was a huge risk. Now while it didn’t light the box office on fire, it did almost beat the much more heavily marketed Rush (9m to 11m), which had 15 times the production budget and twice the advertising budget. It’s a non-traditional “romantic-comedy” so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes but movie folks seem to like it, especially critics, who gave it an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Writer: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Details: 90 minute running time
First of all, I want to talk about the box office this week. I’m not sure what Ron Howard is doing anymore. He’s pigeonholed himself into these safe, fluffy movies that leave so little of an impression, you don’t even have a reaction when you see the posters or trailers anymore. Rush (the car-racing movie he made) just looked so bland. Same with Angels and Demons and The Dilemma. I think these kinds of films did better in the 80s and 90s. These days, you need more edge to your film. You can’t spend 50 million on a movie, have 50 million to advertise it, and almost lose to an indie film. You just can’t. You have to reevaluate what you’re doing and learn to change with the times. I’m sure Howard said, “Fast and Furious’s success shows that people want to watch car racing movies,” which is how he got this made. But the reason that series has done so well is because it has attitude. It’s in your face. It’s flashy. Rush looks like something you catch on cable at 2pm on a Sunday during which you then take a nap. I’m baffled that he thought anyone would want to see this movie.
What does any of this have to do with Don Jon? Not much. However, I have to admit, I thought this movie would do a lot worse. I didn’t like its advertising campaign either. It was just so one-note and non-believable. Basing your story on a woman who’s shocked that her boyfriend watches porn? What year are we in? 2002? I just didn’t see the depth there. But that’s what happens with these marketing approaches sometimes. They believe so little in the audience, they distill their stories down to the most basic of elements. I.E. “Guy with porn problem. Girl no like it.” In actuality, this movie is a lot more complex, a rich character study, and way more unpredictable than your average “romantic comedy.”
Don Jon is about a young New Jersey ladies man, not too far removed from the guys you’d see on Jersey Shore, who lives a very structured lifestyle. He cleans his pad, rides around in his car, goes out with his boys, goes home with a girl… and he watches porn.
You see, even though Don can have any girl he wants, the girls he really wants are made of pixels and frame-rates. Don will masturbate to porn anywhere from 3-5 times a day, many of those times right after he’s taken a girl home who could’ve had her own Maxim spread. Clearly, Don has some issues with intimacy and connection, and that’s not changing any time soon.
Enter Barbara (Scarlett Johansen). This girl is hoootttt. The two start dating, but after she catches Don watching porn, she tells him that if that ever happens again, she’s gone. So now Don has the choice of all choices to make. Does he give up porn for a girl? Naturally, because Don’s a guy, he decides not to make a decision, but rather have both. He’ll be with Barbara and continue to watch porn (or “porno” as she calls it) in secret.
Meanwhile, while taking classes at a local community college, Don gets approached by Esther, a “MILF” as the kids like to say, who’s clearly going through some real-life shit of her own, the kind of shit so bad that she’ll spontaneously cry in public. Esther makes it clear she just wants some young no-strings-attached man-meat, but she is so far off Don’s radar that he won’t even give her the time of day.
However, Don’s own life begins to spiral out of control when Barbara finds out he’s been lying to her and still watches “porno.” So the best girl Don’s ever snagged is all of a sudden out of his life, which Don’s pretty torn up about. Meanwhile, as Esther continues to pester him, he lets her in, and she teaches him the potential of what a real relationship can be if you he can just look past the surface.
Okay, a couple of things I want to commend Don Jon for right off the bat. First, it’s edgy. Tackling a hardcore porn addiction in a romantic comedy has a little more punch to it than say, the lure of soccer moms (recent romantic comedy “Playing for Keeps”). So it’s nice to see a romantic comedy taking a chance.
Second, I LOVED how it didn’t go according to plan. (Spoiler) I mean who’s going into a Scarlett Johansson romantic comedy and not thinking that our leading man and her aren’t going to end up together? Yet they don’t. Don ends up with Esther, which came completely out of left field for me. And I can count the amount of times I’ve been shocked by a romantic comedy ending on one hand. So that was cool.
Which brings us to the actual structure of the screenplay. Now remember, when you have a romantic comedy, story isn’t as important. There isn’t a whole lot of story in When Harry Met Sally. If you can create enough conflict between the characters, and the audience likes a) the lead, b) the girl, and c) is interested in whether they’ll end up together, then you’ve done your job. But you still have to provide some structure to it all, and I thought Don Jon did that in an interesting way.
We start by introducing Don’s addiction. This is the main character’s “problem.” Then, we introduce Barbara, the element that will CHALLENGE that problem. This leads us into the courting stage. Remember, as long as your character is pursuing something, trying to achieve something, the reader should remain engaged. And here, of course, Don is courting Barbara, trying to get into Barbara’s pants (sex is the goal). So we want to see if that’s going to happen.
Where Don Jon gets interesting is when Don finally does get laid. Technically, there’s nothing left for the reader to really “look forward to” at this point. Don is satisfied. He got what he wanted. What’s left to care about? Well, whether Joseph Gordon-Levitt did it on purpose or not, he cleverly switches the objective over to Barbara. It’s Barbara who now wants something, to start controlling Don. She wants him to take classes so he can get a better job. She wants him to get a cleaning lady so he’s not doing manual labor anymore. And she, of course, doesn’t want him watching porn. Barbara is driving the story.
As Don begins to get frustrated with this control, we get the sense that this is all going to blow up at some point, and that’s why we keep watching. In other words, nothing in the movie ever gets too settled. There are always things grinding against and working to unfurl the relationship. That conflict is what provides the entertainment.
Another really smart decision was bringing in this class and the Esther character. I usually don’t advocate bringing in brand new characters this late in a script, but Esther is so persistent, so intriguing, that we’re wondering where her inclusion’s going to go, especially because it isn’t your run-of-the-mill temptation situation where a young smokin’ lady lures our male protagonist into the bedroom. Esther is older and unattractive to Don, which adds an extra element of mystery to the ordeal. We really have no idea how that’s going to end up.
That relationship then takes us to the end of the movie, where again, Gordon-Levitt made a smart choice. He kept the script short. Only 90 pages (if it’s the same as the running time). So we don’t linger around on anything too long here. We move quickly from one section to the next and therefore no time is wasted. I read three scripts this week that each could’ve cut 30 pages because the writers were writing all these extra unnecessary scenes that only peripherally added to the story. Gordon-Levitt did the opposite. He only included what was necessary and not a single scene more.
I know I talk a lot about rules on this site. But I also say that the rules you break are what make your script different from everything else and therefore, you should always try to break a few when writing. It doesn’t always turn out well (and can easily veer into disaster-territory) but when you do it right, you come up with a movie like Don Jon, one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Except for special circumstances, never let things get too happy in your main romantic relationship. There should always be an element working to unseat the relationship. If it’s not your lead, it should be the romantic interest. If it’s not the lead or the romantic interest, it should be something outside the relationship. The second a relationship becomes perfect, is the second it becomes boring.
What I learned #2: Miss Scriptshadow told me this would be a good movie and I didn’t believe her, so this is a public apology for thinking she could possibly be wrong. Miss Scriptshadow, like all other women, is never wrong. I will buy her Starbucks to make up for my heinous gaffe.
