Like the members of a once-great rock band that dissolved into regrettable solo projects, the cast of Seinfeld had a special alchemy together that they haven't come close to reproducing on their own. With the awful final episode setting the tone for projects to come, Jerry Seinfeld launched a stand-up tour to brush the cobwebs off decade-old bits, Michael Richards developed a much-maligned eponymous spin-off show, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus appeared in long-distance commercials, the lowest form of TV hucksterism. For his part, Jason Alexander has disappeared behind the camera with Just Looking, a bland coming-of-age story that bears no trace of his personality and very little of anyone else's. Based on a semi-autobiographical screenplay by Marshall Karp, this tale of innocence sweetly lost lays on the nostalgia for mid-'50s New York, at times suggesting that his memories of the period have been filtered through Neil Simon plays. The too-cute premise involves 14-year-old Ryan Merriman's determined efforts to see two people "do it" over his summer vacation. When his mother (Patti LuPone) and stepfather catch him trying to look through their bedroom keyhole, they banish him from their Bronx apartment to spend the rest of the summer with his aunt and uncle out in "the country," their term for Queens. Once there, Merriman joins a "sex club" to discuss the subject with other curious teens, and fantasizes about Gretchen Mol, a cheery nurse who used to model for bra ads. Mol's combination of fresh-milk wholesomeness and carefully hidden sexuality is the edgiest element of Just Looking, but Alexander and Karp prove to be as prudish as their hero, reluctant to shatter their image of her as a perfect, porcelain figurine. Not that all movies about the period have to be Blue Velvet, but Just Looking provides everything short of Daniel Stern narration to bathe the '50s in a genial, bittersweet hue, holding shots of shiny classic cars and old-timey glass Coke bottles to the point of fetishization. The events may be taken from Karp's own experiences, but through Alexander's lens, his adolescent memories look glossed over and regrettably unspecific.