Addictions of all kinds inhibit our ability to connect deeply with others. They take our focus away from the good work of relationship and connection and replace it with an abject desire for something else. These things come in all shapes and sizes (although certain forms have been more demonized in our current cultural context). First time director/writer Joseph Gordon-Levitt and his online production company HitREcord creatively explore this subject – addiction – in their first film, Don Jon.
Don Jon was originally titled Don Jon’s Addiction. The film centers on Jon and his search for connection, for something in which he can loose himself. As the first trailer attests (in a style that highlights the frenzy of addiction), there are several things that matter to this man: his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls, and his porn. For Jon, porn is better than the sex he is consistently having. However, addiction to porn is not the only addiction in the film, and it is contrasted with other more insidious forms of addiction.
While Jon’s use of porn is a key plot point for the story, this film is actually saying something deeper than “porn is bad.” The underlying question is one of connection: Is our addiction to idealized perspectives keeping us from experiencing the beauty of real connection?
One of the characters in the film, Esther, asks Jon at one point why he likes porn and if he can “get off” without it. His response to her is that in porn he can lose himself in a way he can’t while having sex. She in turn says, “If you want to lose your self, you have to lose your self in another person. It’s a two-way thing.” revealing the foundation of relationships – connection with another person. The film is really not about pornography as much as it is about something deeper, the reasons why people use and become addicted to something like porn.
Gordon-Levitt uses the “shock” of pornography to emphasize a deeper truth, that we are looking for connection and depth in our relationships with others. Like many of the characters in this film, we often live in such a way that we miss the goodness of real life because it doesn’t look like what we have imagined it should be. When offered the opportunity to connect deeply with another person, are we willing to shed our idealized standards and accept this gift, or will we reject this opportunity and keep waiting for the “perfect” person?
As I watched the film, I found myself thinking over my current relationship and previous relationships, posing the questions the film asks of my own life. Where had I stalled, at least for a while, in a state of idealized construction, and where had I risked being open to real onnection? My relationship with my fiancé stood out as one of those opening points, where I moved beyond what I thought I wanted and needed in a relationship and a partner. I became open to something better that was outside the limits of my imagination.
Don Jon‘s tells a powerful story about what is real and what is not. Its content isn’t “safe,” but, in the end, it speaks needed truth to those who are willing to listen.