Just Looking
Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 20
  3. Negative: 3 out of 20
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Loren King
    75
    A teen comedy wise beyond its years.
  2. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Curtis Morgan
    75
    The characters are easy to overplay, but the ensemble keeps its feet on the ground.
  3. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    A coming-of-age film that has the jaunty mood and egg-cream flavor of a Philip Roth memoir.
  4. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Luke Y. Thompson
    70
    Deserves more than just a look.
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    70
    It goes down as easy as a cherry Coke.
  6. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    63
    Too smitten with the Eisenhower-era nostalgia.
  7. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    60
    There's not that much that's new in screenwriter Marshall Karp's sitcom-ish memoir, but Alexander keeps the laughs coming.
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  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    58
    The pacing is lumpy, the acting's all over the map.
  9. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Kevin Maynard
    52
    At best a vaguely Semitic episode of "The Wonder Years."
  10. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    50
    Old-fashioned comedy-drama.
  11. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    50
    Generic memoir of lower-middle-class "white ethnic" life in the '50s.
  12. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    50
    Pleasant, ultimately sweet but never quite inspired.
  13. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    50
    It's merely a by-the-numbers coming-of-age film
  14. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Leslie Camhi
    50
    Marshall Karp's script is clever and funny, though studded with anachronisms.
  15. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Gene Seymour
    50
    There are enough grace notes and gentle surprises strewn along this well-trod path to make Just Looking just good enough to justify Alexander's career move.
  16. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    40
    Contains some nicely observed moments, but they're buried in an unrepentantly sitcomy script.
  17. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    40
    Fails to create a seamless and believable web of measured performances and period color.
  18. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    30
    A candy-colored, unabashedly sentimental movie.
  19. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    20
    A clumsy and tone-deaf comedy.
  20. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Chuck Wilson
    10
    This sort of nostalgia-drenched, sexual-coming-of-age saga has been done to death.

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