X
- 1985
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 44 m
- 1985
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 44 m
Summary A bored suburban housewife, seeking escape from her life, suffers amnesia after an accident, wakes up, and is mistaken for a free-spirited New York City drifter named Susan.
Directed By: Susan Seidelman
Written By: Leora Barish
- 1985
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 44 m
- 1985
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 44 m
Desperately Seeking Susan
71
7.8
Where to Watch
Summary A bored suburban housewife, seeking escape from her life, suffers amnesia after an accident, wakes up, and is mistaken for a free-spirited New York City drifter named Susan.
Directed By: Susan Seidelman
Written By: Leora Barish
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
71
81% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
19% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
71
81% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
19% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
A whimsical but optimistic tale of mistaken identity, it starred the Material Girl as the cheekily irresistible Susan, and turned Rosanna Arquette (repressed housewife Roberta) into a star.
Seidelman brings a hip '80s SoHo sensibility to this emancipated screwball comedy, even if the plotting (a mistaken identity farce involving that old chestnut, amnesia brought on by a bump to the head) is square as a square peg. Madonna has never found a better fit than the role of Susan, a thrift-store free spirit - and even then Arquette gives as good as she gets with a deliciously kooky comic turn.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 41 User Ratings
7.8
78% Positive
32 Ratings
32 Ratings
15% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
7% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 41 User Ratings
7.8
78% Positive
32 Ratings
32 Ratings
15% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
7% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Desperately Seeking Susan, based on a good screenplay by a new writer named Leora Barish, is a terrifically genial New York City farce in which the lives of two very different young women become tangled in an Orlon web of lies, half-truths and cross purposes. Full of funny, sharply observed details, reflected in Santo Loquasto's witty production design as well as in all of the dozens of individual performances. The cast is virtually a Players Guide to the variety of performing talent available in New York.
This is one of the most charming low-budget films in years, a freewheeling, light-hearted farce that gives some new twists to old plot devices.
This new-wave fairy tale revels in unlikeliness and is not afraid to take its inspiration from sources as disparate as Diva, Madame Bovary and The Prince and the Pauper. The collision of inimical styles is its theme. Fortunately, even when the mile-a-minute plot is careering all over Manhattan, the movie seems to be following some cracked and sweet internal melody of its own. Which may be why this featherweight concoction lingers in the mind longer than you'd think possible. [08 Apr 1985, p.85]
Rosanna Arquette does more than her share in the pivotal part of a bored Yuppie housewife who follows the personal ads, wondering about the identities behind a desperately seeking Susan item that runs from time to time.
Desperately Seeking Susan is just a woman's version of The Woman in Red, where Gene Wilder chased Kelly Le Brock because she was great looking and rich and he had the middle-class blues. The only difference is that Wilder felt guilty about it.
L'un des rares, très rares films avec Madonna... et on comprend pourquoi assez vite : la blondasse est en effet complètement à la masse... mais le plus inquiétant concerne Rosanna à peine moins mauvaise que la chanteuse sulfureuse. Cela dit, Rosanna n'a jamais inventé l'eau chaude et encore moins l'eau tiède, on y fait donc guère attention.
On ne fait pas attention non plus à l'histoire (?) de cette sorte de comédie poussive qui mulitplie les prouesses en matière à la fois d'inanité et de niaiserie : peut-être est-ce un produit visant uniquement les fans de la fausse madonne décolorée et/ou les adolescents un peu simples ?
En tout cas, pour tout spectateur normalement constitué, ce n'est pas regardable, car ici en vérité, on brasse du vide avec de la merde. Recherche donc film... désespérément. Et sans les grognasses si possible.
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Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Nomination
Jupiter Award
• 2 Nominations
BAFTA Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
