Don Jon (2013)

There is a lot not to like in this movie about a young man whose world is shallow--he picks up women at night clubs, has drunken one night stands with them, goes to a job that we never see him at it is so meaningless to him, and spends the rest of his time going to church, having Sunday dinner with his parents, pumping iron at the gym (Joseph Gordon Levitt is almost unrecognizable he looks so pumped up), cleaning his apartment, and masturbating to pornography.  Not a lot to build a movie around.  The club montages could have been shot once and reused they looked so much like each other.

There are several things to think about here.  Jon is the modern day version of Don Juan, a man reputed to have have bedded many women one time only.  The added modern twist is the widespread availability of pornography--how does that change the equation?  It has made actual sex with a real woman less satisfying to him than masturbation with porn.  His hot beautiful girlfriend (Scarlett Johansson) doesn't change that equation at all, but his relationship with Esther (Julianne Moore) does.  She speaks to him frankly--and non-judgmentally-- about his addiction.  "You know that's not real, right?"  Well, it turns out he really didn't.  When he admits that he would prefer to have sex with himself in front of a computer rather than with a woman, she helps him to figure out why that is.  She is his sex therapist and despite the fact that she is literally old enough to be his mother, it really works for him.  He has satisfying sex, he is a happier man, and he enjoys both her and sex with her.  Lots to think about in terms of navigating the modern world.