Alexander's Debut Can't Rise Above Mediocre

Lenny Levine, the fourteen year-old hero of Just Looking, declares to his teacher that his goal for the summer is "to witness an act of love". Lenny means that he wants to watch people have sex. Predictably, Lenny's words turn out to be truer than he intended. He finds that love is not only more accessible to him than sex, it is ultimately more important.

Just Looking chronicles the sexual and emotional awakening of Lenny, a Jewish boy from the Bronx , in the summer of 1955. Living with his mother and new stepfather, Lenny is pre-occupied by all the normal concerns of adolescence, including-surprise, suprise-sex. Whether it's two forks joined together on his dining room table or a needle on a record player, everything Lenny sees fuels his desire to see two people "do it". But when Lenny' parents catch him spying on them in their bedroom one night, they decide that he should spend the summer with his Aunt Norma and her husband Phil in "the country" (country meaning Queens, New York). Much to Lenny's disappointment, Norma is nine months pregnant; so he must explore the greater Queens community in order to fulfill his summer goal.

Lenny does not find sex during his summer in Queens, but he forges important relationships. With his friend Jonny and two girls from the neighborhood, he goes through the rites of passages that have become so entrenched in the "coming of age" film; he joins a "sex club" with his friends, meets his first love, a twenty-something nurse named Hedy, and eventually begins to realize the complicated relationship between love and sex.

Even more significantly, Lenny learns that everyone, even people he thought were perfect such as Hedy and Lenny's father, have inescapable flaws; his growth is marked by his realization that he can love those people anyway.

Though its premise is original, the abundance of stereotypes means that Just Looking can't be a truly significant film. You can't help notice each new cliche, from the pin-up of Hedy as a lingerie model to the kosher butcher Mark, a throw-back to Fiddler on the Roof's Lazar Wolf.

What keeps Just Looking merely predictable rather than boring are its characters. First-time film director Jason Alexander (yes, George from "Seinfeld") clearly loves his actors and the characters they portray. Every character, from Lenny to the old Italian assistant at the grocery store, is vivid and sharply delineated and the performances are sensitive and compelling. Ryan Merriman, as Lenny, does an especially impressive job. Gretchen Mol, who disappeared from Hollywood radar after being proclaimed the new "it" girl on the cover of Vanity Fair, has reinstated herself with her charming turn as Hedy.

"You look at Jason, you think comedy", said the film's writer Marshall Karp of director Alexander. But in fact the comic scenes are not the film's strong point. The sex club scenes, where Lenny and his friends discuss everything from the missionary position to masturbation, sound contrived. Their conversations are too clinical for a group of teenagers talking about sex.

The strength of the movie lies instead in its emotional component, in the complexities brought forth by the characters and their relationships. This makes Just Looking a heart-warming and worthwhile, even if not memorable, film.

JUST LOOKING

directed by

Jane Alexander

starring

Gretchen Mol

Ryan Merriman

Fox 2000 Pictures

directed by

Jane Alexander

starring

Gretchen Mol

Ryan Merriman

Fox 2000 Pictures