Easily one of the major buzz titles to come out of the Sundance Film Festival this year, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut "Don Jon's Addiction" picked up nearly universal rave reviews, but many people also wondered: would the movie be able to keep the sex scenes intact? Let's rewind a bit. In the film, JGL has the titular lead, a porn addicted lothario who begins a relationship with two different women and tries to unplug from the smut he thoroughly enjoys. The movie itself also contains a handful of porn clips, but it looks like they will be getting the axe.
The actor/director is currently at the Berlin International Film Festival where the movie is also unspooling, and he revealed to press he will have to make some snips to the movie down at an R-rating. “Yes, we expect we have to do that and I'll be getting started on it as soon as I get back,” Gordon-Levitt said, but he adds that he doesn't think it will affect the overall tone of the movie. “I think it is important that those images are in there but what precisely you see isn't that important. What's important is the rhythm of the film, the repetition of what the Don Jon character does, over and over.”
It's interesting to note that when we spoke with him in Park City, JGL was candid that when making the movie in the first place, he was already carefully editing and cropping scenes in order to get an R rating. "Porn can get pretty gross, especially if you watch a lot of it," he explained. "We were very careful about picking just the right moments, just the right videos, and cropping them just the right way so that it feels like you’re seeing more than you’re actually seeing. You don’t technically see anything that’s not allowed in a rated R movie." But it would appear he needs to shave a bit more to please the MPAA.
No word yet on if the edited version will be the one that screens at SXSW in March but it should be emphasized these cuts don't really affect the main story at all. And at the end of the day, the movie is "a beguiling romantic comedy with a heart, soul and pulse that will pleasure you for a full 90 minutes with hardly breaking a sweat." Relativity will open the movie in theaters this summer. [THR]
