Who payed the critics

A Brilliant Conflict

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

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.

"Desperately Seeking Susan" isn't so much a homage to the screwball comedy as it is a homage to the screwball situation. It doesn't try to be riotous or anything remotely Ernst Lubitsch — instead, it flutters by with half-smile as it discombobulates the at-first congenial attitude of the atmosphere. Never did I find myself laughing hysterically, but here, that's not the point. It wants to be an amuser in the same mindset as "Pretty in Pink", no knee- slappers to be found but charm spread aplenty. Because that's exactly what "Desperately Seeking Susan" is: a charming comedy of errors that likes to get its characters into as much trouble as possible for satisfactory diversion. Rosanna Arquette portrays Roberta Glass, a bored housewife who spends her afternoons watching cooking shows and living vicariously through the lonely hearts in the classified ads. Most interesting to her is the recurring 'Desperately Seeking Susan' ad, which follows the romance between Jim (Robert Joy) and his sexy girlfriend, Susan (Madonna), both of whom are young, bohemian, and fiercely independent. As she twiddles her thumbs for the umpteenth time one afternoon, Roberta decides to act as onlooker, tracking the twosome down and watching their public encounter from afar. She becomes infatuated with the street stylish Susan and, after a series of complicated events I won't bother to explain, she bumps her head, gets amnesia, and falls under the impression that, she is, in fact, Susan.Most housewives would want to be like the free-spirited woman, but Susan, as it so happens, is in a lot of trouble. Her boyfriend has just stolen valuable Egyptian jewelry, jewelry she enjoys wearing, and a gaggle of thugs are thirsty to get their paws on the collection. So as Roberta wanders around the city bearing Susan's name and wearing her clothes, the criminals begin to chase her, while the real Susan causes a ruckus elsewhere — eventually leading to Roberta's confused husband (Mark Blum). "Desperately Seeking Susan" is the best kind of amusing: pleasant but not so much so that we become immersed in the fact that things aren't as zany as they could be. The film is smartly amusing, after all, with the comic scenario bettering as it grows increasingly convoluted. The screenplay sizzles in its ability to entice us into Susan's world of bohemian style, and the actors are all winning: Arquette, in particular, carries the movie with her sincerely warm characterization. But the best thing about "Desperately Seeking Susan" is Susan Seidelman's great eye for street life: I've never been one to figure a movie is better simply because of the decade it sits in, but Seidelman, intentional or not, finds all the best things about the 1980s and seems to cram them into one excitingly snazzy picture. The ghettos are effectively hip, the suburbs slightly tongue-in-cheek, like "Wild At Heart" if it wasn't crazy. Seidelman's vision is best reflected in Madonna, in her earliest incarnation and her most kitschily well-dressed. "Desperately Seeking Susan" is slight when it comes to comedy but hugely successful when it comes to pure enjoyment. A product of the times, it has aged gloriously as a nostalgic piece snug in all the right places. And nothing's better than the boho sensuous Madonna (providing the soundtrack with guilty pleasure "Into the Groove") before she got all blond ambitious and stopped looking like the chic spunk who stole records as a pastime.

Every time i heard about this movie, it's about Madonna. Well, if the Madie from 87-90 was my first crush, actually the star is Rosanna. I just like the way she is always away, dreamy, longing for something outside her grasp (By the way, I'm sure John Scott Campbell, the comic books artist, is also a fan because he always draws her).Here, Rosanna goes from middle-class desperate housewife to free punk runaway in the Lower East Side. It isn't the NYC of see sights books but it worth the look. We even go to the Dancetaria, the club where Madonna begins her career. Jesus, it's true, she is everywhere and I can't help writing about her.Well, i will add that this movie was an UFO in Hollywood at this time: produced by a woman, written by and for another, directed by another one as well, i am sure that this feminine touch explains it success. Surely, nowadays, we need this badly! Except "Boys don't cry", i don't know any other other girl power movie.Another good thing here is the time-machine: for the new babies, the 80 were like this: flashy, shiny, an explosion of clothes, things and music. In 2K10, conformism seems everywhere and we don't have no more song-tracks like "Get into the groove", written by you-know-who!

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.