Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

I don't care how many times I see this movie - it NEVER gets old. NYC was a very big deal back in the day, and this movie captured a lot of it. I miss the Danceteria and the Pyramid Club. What a fun time. The movie is very lighthearted and fun. Makes me want to go back to NYC, even though I know the good times are gone. boohoo

A case of amnesia, complicated by mistaken identity, is what drives this quirky, lovable comedy. But it is more than a comedy. It morphs into a love story and a tale of self-discovery."Desperately Seeking Susan" is a clever, quirky film that delights at every turn. Madonna, in her first significant film role, is the eponymous Susan--a wild woman unrestrained by conventions or predictability. Rosanna Arquette plays Roberta, the amnesiac who invents herself using obscure clues in a hatbox as she attempts to discover her true identity. Both women are terrific.Quirkiness is what drives this film--the story, the dialogue, the casting, the wardrobe, the scenery. Shot in and around New York City, much of the action takes place in neon nightclubs and graffiti-filled alleyways, feeling like it is in the same neighborhood as Mushnick's Flower Shop. Also, look for the snippets of a magic act, a ventriloquist act and a stand-up routine.Director Susan Seidelman deserves credit for this conglomeration of playness and kitsch, and so do the designers whose attention to detail is apparent in every frame.

It started with Madonna. I idolized her growing up. And when this movie came out and I was able to watch it for the first time, I became obsessed. It was an 80s cult classic and I loved it! I loved the music, the comedy, the style, the plot....And I would watch it over and over again when I could catch it on TV. Ffwd to college (Back in 2004- 2005), and I'm in a Gender and Power in Film Class. I picked this movie to do my final paper on, and I learned that it's a much deeper film than people give it credit for, which is why I gave it a 10 out of 10. This movie is a prime example of a woman finding her own identity and being reborn. If you look closely enough at the plot, listen to the music, and watch the cinematography, you will notice how the director uses these elements to bring Roberta and Susan's worlds together. The "Shoop Shoop" song at the beginning of the movie, is perfect for the opening scenes at the beauty parlor where we begin--which is a place of transforming one's appearance in order to become beautiful for our man, who will (according to the song playing in the scene) "kiss me". This scene defines the theme of the entire movie: being remade or transformed. The question we should ask as we watch the movie, is "If you are transforming yourself on the outside, does it make you any different on the inside?" In Roberta's case, she has to lose herself on the inside in order to become someone different. No matter how she changes her outward appearance, she still feels bored and unloved.When we meet Roberta, a meek and mild-mannered housewife who is bored and looking vicariously for excitement by reading the personal ads, she is at the beauty salon getting her hair done for her husband's party. She gets wrapped up in Susan's ads and wants to find out more about her. In the scenes with Roberta, we see that Seidelman chooses light and bright coloring to show what her world looks like (Pastel pinks are a big thing in her world). By the time Roberta enters Susan's world, "the Rabbit hole" (As Seidelman describes in the director commentary), she is surrounded by Susan's colors, which are darker hued greens, golds and blacks. Roberta enters a "fantasy" world of sorts, as she develops amnesia from a fall, soon after following Susan to Battery Park. She "becomes" Susan, thanks to Dez's prompting, and therefore loses her housewife identity and takes on a different one. Because of this, Roberta is able to explore her inner being, challenge who she is on the outside, and be able to express a part of her personality she had never been able to express before. By the time the movie ends, Roberta has regained her memory and finds her confidence completely. Screenwriter Barish explained that the confidence Roberta found is not one she is aware of, it just happens by following her intuition, or imagination. Roberta is led towards her confidence without having a conscious drive or aggression. I could post my entire paper on here but it was over 1000 words! :) My goal for this review is to give you a brief overview of what I was able to interpret from this film to give you a better understanding of it for when you watch it. It's not just a fun romp through NYC, but a story about one woman's journey to find her true self and be happy with her own life.

A bored suburban housewife yearning for excitement traces the personals ad of the film's title and is thrust headlong into a series of trendy misadventures in downtown Manhattan. It plays like a more audience-friendly alternative to 'After Hours', released the same year (and, coincidentally, also featuring Rosanna Arquette), sharing the same artsy-fartsy underground NY setting, but with none of the nightmare momentum of Martin Scorsese's black comedy of errors. Unfortunately the already stale mistaken identity plot twist is reinforced by a convenient stroke of amnesia, in screen writing terms a sure sign of a desperate imagination. The film is a slave to contemporary fashions, carried to extremes by the casting of Madonna as the tawdry, streetwise title character. She couldn't act to save her own life (and in a role which should have been second nature to her), but let's be fair: the script doesn't give her much to work with, being nowhere desperate enough to qualify as the modern urban screwball comedy it aspires to.