Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Taglines: Roberta is desperate to be Susan. Susan is wanted by the mob. The mob finds Roberta instead…

Desperately Seeking Susan movie synopsis. Bored Roberta spots a regular personal ad in the paper titled ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’. She heads off to New York, following one of the ads, and finds Susan. When Susan sells her jacket, Roberta – trying to emulate her mystery ad writer – buys the jacket and wears it. Little does she know someon is looking for the jacket – and its owner…

Desperately Seeking Susan is a 1985 American comedy-drama film directed by Susan Seidelman and starring Rosanna Arquette and Madonna. Set in New York, the plot involves the interaction between two women – a bored housewife and a bohemian drifter – linked by various announcements in the personal column of a newspaper.

This was Madonna’s first major screen role and the film also provided early roles for a number of other well-known performers, such as John Turturro, Laurie Metcalf, Aidan Quinn and Steven Wright. The New York Times named the film as one of the 10 best films of 1985.

About the Story

Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) is an unfulfilled suburban housewife living in Fort Lee, New Jersey who is fascinated with a woman she only knows about by reading messages to and from her in the personals section of a New York City tabloid. This fascination reaches a peak when an ad with the headline “Desperately Seeking Susan” seeks a rendezvous in Battery Park with the man who regularly seeks her (i.e. Jim, played by Robert Joy).

Roberta goes to Battery Park too, sees the woman (Madonna), and in a series of events involving mistaken identity, amnesia, and other farcical elements, Roberta goes from voyeur to participant in an Alice in Wonderland–style plot, ostensibly motivated by the search for a pair of stolen Egyptian earrings. With both of them trying to locate Roberta, her husband Gary (Mark Blum) encounters the wild Susan.