Stars: Madonna, Rosanna Arquette, Robert Jay, Aidan Quinn

Director: Susan Seidelman

Summary: As the result of a strange mishap, the lives of a free-spirited rock star and a conservative suburban housewife are reversed.

Arquette is Roberta Glass, a bored New Jersey yuppie housewife who finds escapism from her mundane life in the New York personal ad exploits of a flighty bohemian named Susan (Madonna). When Roberta travels to the city to witness an ad-inspired meeting between Susan and her lover Jimmy, she bumps her head, loses her memory, and for all intensive purposes, becomes Susan, thanks to a case of mistaken identity. As a result, she is pursued by crooks and other shady characters through the funky East Village of the early 1980s. Quinn is the confused film protectionist who stumbles into the role of Roberta/Susan's protector. Madonna, not quite a superstar when this was filmed, uses this small role to show the sort of charisma she would soon shower upon the world in larger doses. Steven Wright, Giancarlo Esposito, Richard Hell, Ann Magnuson, John Lurie and Arto Lindsay also turn up in small roles in this fun, screwball 80s love letter to the downtown scene.

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This likeable, feminist screwball comedy about several incidents of mistaken identity is remembered more as the film that made Madonna a movie star. She's flip, hip and energetic as Susan, the wild tramp with whom bored, suburban New Jersey housewife Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) becomes obsessed after reading of her sexual conquests in the personal ads. Of course, since Madonna essentially played herself, the role's hardly a stretch.

Director Susan Seidelmen presents a series of zany incidents too complicated to recount, but the result is that Roberta swaps lifestyles with her fixation to explore New Wave culture on New York's Lower East Side. It's territory Seidelmen knew well as her more offbeat, indie debut, Smithereens, revelled in the same setting. But where Smithereens took a more edgy approach to its characters, Susanis a fairy tale romantic comedy, and eventually becomes as conventional as the suburban characters it mocks by settling conflicts with predictable Hollywood formulae. Still, there's much to be enjoyed. The film's at its funniest when juxtaposing New York hip and New Jersey suburbia, like when Arquette's straight, suit-and-tie husband dances with Madonna in a punk club. The performances, too, are engaging, especially Arquette and Aidan Quinn, playing a romantic film projectionist who becomes her grubby Prince Charming. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com--This text refers to the VHS edition of this video

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menu, Theatrical Trailer, Chapter Access, Alternative Ending
Subtitles:	Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
Year:	1985
Release Date:	August 15, 2000
Runtime:	119 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	15801 D V D
Keywords:	Comedy, General, Wide, Screen, Desperately, Seeking, Susan
Genre:	Comedy