| 75 |
Miami Herald
The characters are easy to overplay, but the ensemble keeps its feet on the ground.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A coming-of-age film that has the jaunty mood and egg-cream flavor of a Philip Roth memoir.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Loren King
A teen comedy wise beyond its years.
|
| 70 |
Variety
It goes down as easy as a cherry Coke.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
Deserves more than just a look.
|
| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
Too smitten with the Eisenhower-era nostalgia.
|
| 60 |
Rolling Stone
There's not that much that's new in screenwriter Marshall Karp's sitcom-ish memoir, but Alexander keeps the laughs coming.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
Ty Burr
The pacing is lumpy, the acting's all over the map.
|
| 52 |
Mr. Showbiz
At best a vaguely Semitic episode of "The Wonder Years."
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Marshall Karp's script is clever and funny, though studded with anachronisms.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Old-fashioned comedy-drama.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Pleasant, ultimately sweet but never quite inspired.
|
| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
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.
|
| 50 |
Portland Oregonian
It's merely a by-the-numbers coming-of-age film
|
| 50 |
New York Post
Generic memoir of lower-middle-class "white ethnic" life in the '50s.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
Contains some nicely observed moments, but they're buried in an unrepentantly sitcomy script.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Fails to create a seamless and believable web of measured performances and period color.
|
| 30 |
The New York Times
A candy-colored, unabashedly sentimental movie.
|
| 20 |
Film.com
A clumsy and tone-deaf comedy.
|
| 10 |
LA Weekly
Chuck Wilson
This sort of nostalgia-drenched, sexual-coming-of-age saga has been done to death.
|
