When the gorgeous and classy Barbara enters his life, however, things look like they’re finally about to change. A ‘dime’—the highest a woman could rank in Jon’s estimation—who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, Barbara soon has her hands in all areas of our hero’s tightly compartmentalised world, and is determined to improve him. It’s going swimmingly well, up to the point where she discovers his major penchant for pornography. Disgusted by it, she forces him to promise to give up the habit, but like with most addicts under the delusion that they control the addiction—and not the other way around—that’s easier said than done. It’s now time for a bit of soul-searching on Jon’s part in an effort to examine why it is he’s so drawn to fictional sexual exploits instead of real intimacy, and to find out if Barbara truly is the one to help him make that shift.

Don Jon represents the screenwriting and directorial debut of one Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also stars as the film’s titular character, and who, most will agree, is among Hollywood’s most promising young talents. We’ve watched him practically grow up on screen; from the scrawny alien-boy he played on 3rd Rock from the Sun, the loveable nerd navigating high school in 10 Things I Hate About You, one half of a doomed relationship in 2009’s indie-hit (500) Days of Summer or avatars in big-budget blockbusters like Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and Looper more lately, Gordon-Levitt is one of the few actors who’ve managed to make the transition from child star to teen star to big-time movie star fairly smoothly, with no visible casualties. But as easy as it is to give him credit for how far he’s come along in terms of his acting faculties—and there’s no doubt that he’s one to watch for given the diverse and very nuanced performances he’s tossed out in the last decade or so—as a director, he isn’t quite able to hit the right notes. Don Jon, while starting out engagingly enough and broaching a subject that hasn’t been addressed in too many films thus far, struggles to maintain its grasp on our interest past the halfway mark, delivering its point with an amateurish lack of subtlety and winding down to a highly incongruous but mercifully quick ending.

An ethnic stereotype popularised most recently by MTV’s The Jersey Shore, the guido profile Gordon-Levitt lays bare here certainly makes for an interesting study, revealing the empty inner lives of many of these Jersey clubbers—for which their hard-partying ways and obsession with exaggerated bodily aesthetics offer a mask, we’re told. These are, the film posits, essentially man-children who are terrified of growing up, which is why they hang on to their debaucherous pastimes quite so desperately—they simply don’t want to deal with adult responsibilities. And as in our protagonist’s case, that often applies to relationships as well. Early scenes in the film, which show us the ropes of the subculture—as well as exhibiting Jon’s personal quirks—are interesting as well as funny. Both Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson, who plays Barbara, wring out the laughs with their amplified accents and gestures, both having a lot of fun with the obvious caricatures.

But that’s the thing, the script never lets these caricatures evolve into actual characters—in fact, none of the people in the film feel anything like real people, including Tony Danza as Jon’s lecherous father—which makes it difficult to really become invested in any of them, especially when the film tries to go into more serious, ‘life lessons’ territory. That last minute attempt at offering gravity in the form of moral messages on the adverse effects of pornography on relationships at a time when the Internet allows for constant access to adult sites, or about addictive behaviour in general, just doesn’t work given how thinly drawn the roles are here. One simply doesn’t care much for Jon Martello, or those around him, for that matter.

Despite the efforts of a cast that does the best it can under the circumstances, Don Jon clearly misses the target in terms of impact. Although it touches upon intriguing ground, it doesn’t possess the heft necessary to excavate it winningly, and occupies then a middling space between comedy and commentary, doing neither justice. As much as he’s learned to flex his acting muscles—not to mention his literal ones—Gordon-Levitt has some considerable bulking up to do where his directorial skills are concerned.