Gordon-Levitt mines the humour in porn for Don Jon

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 said. While the story uses pornography as a device, Gordon-Levitt emphasised 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. Ac t o r 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 h u m a• nature, and it’s really p re v a l e• t right now.”

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