By Piya Sinha-Roy
PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 20 (Reuters) – After a remarkable run
with leading roles in films such as “The Dark Knight Rises” and
“Inception,” actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt stepped behind the
camera to direct “Don Jon’s Addiction,” a raunchy comedy that
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Don Jon’s Addiction,” which Gordon-Levitt also wrote and
stars in, leads a slate of films about sex on this year’s
Sundance roster.
The film follows the story of Jon, a handsome young man who
is unable to maintain a relationship, due to his addiction to
pornography.
When Jon meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a beautiful but
high-maintenance woman obsessed with Hollywood romantic
comedies, and Esther (Julianne Moore), an emotionally fragile
widow, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
Gordon-Levitt, 31, a former child star who has risen through
the ranks of television and independent film to become one of
Hollywood’s most bankable actors, said he thought it would be
“hilarious” to pair a porn addict with a woman addicted to
romance films.
“I wanted to tell a love story, and in my observations, what
gets in the way of love most the time is how people objectify
each other,” the actor told Reuters on Saturday.
While the story uses pornography as a device, Gordon-Levitt
emphasized it was not meant as a commentary on porn addiction.
“I wasn’t really focused on porn or porn addiction. It was
really, to me, more of a metaphor,” he said. “It is astonishing
how prevalent it is in our culture today.”
Moore said the story reflected what is happening in modern
society and culture.
“Both (characters) create expectations that people can’t
authentically meet in a relationship,” Moore said. “We have so
much of that in our lives right now in the world, with all the
media influences, so people are growing up with this expectation
that this is how you have a relationship.”
“Don Jon” and other festival films such as “The Look of
Love,” “Lovelace,” “kink” and “Interior. Leather Bar,” explore
the ways sex affects individuals and their ability to form
relationships.
Actor Tony Danza, who worked with Gordon-Levitt in the 1994
film “Angels in the Outfield” and plays his father in “Don Jon,”
said the film would spark conversation.
“It’s just an uncomfortable subject, which lights everyone’s
fire,” Danza said. “It exposes human nature, albeit with a
sometimes uncomfortable subject. But he exposes a real slice of
human nature, and it’s really prevalent right now.”
MODERN DAY DON JUAN
Gordon-Levitt, who founded the HitRECord project that
brings together an online community of creative artists, said he
found inspiration for “Don Jon’s” humor on social media
platforms.
“If you go on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and you look at the
humor on there, you might call it smutty, you might call it
raunchy, but there’s also a sort of honesty to it,” he said.
Gordon-Levitt said he set out to shake up assumptions about
porn addiction by playing his character “Jon” against type.
Instead of playing a socially awkward guy who turns to porn
because he cannot connect with women, “Jon” is a buff lothario.
While he has plenty of female companions, Jon’s porn addiction
warps his views and expectations of women and sabotages his
relationships.
Jon is portrayed as an Italian-American, but Gordon-Levitt
said the “archetype is beyond ethnicity.”
“I thought, ‘who is the current-day Don Juan,’ and the first
thing I thought of was that guy with too much gel in his hair
and a gym body … I loved it instantly and thought it would be
so funny to play that part.”
Gordon-Levitt said he hoped audiences come away from the
film “wanting to engage with each other.”
“I would hope people … examine each other as unique
individuals as opposed to items on a checklist, and I hope they
have a great time and laugh,” he said. “And I hope they go home
and have transcendent sex.”
(Editing by Stacey Joyce)
