Rent Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Big Hair, Bigger Identity Crisis - Desperately Seeking Susan review by griggs

You can see why this was sold as a Madonna vehicle, but what really lands is that it’s Rosanna Arquette’s film. Her Roberta starts as a bored Jersey housewife peering at someone else’s life through the classifieds, then stumbles into downtown New York and realises she’d rather be Susan than herself. It’s identity theft as self-discovery, and the film is firmly on her side.

The plot is unabashedly daft – bump-on-the-head amnesia, crooks who talk too much, coincidences stacked like Jenga – but the texture is great. Mid-’80s Manhattan is a scruffy fairy tale of clubs, fleamarkets and dive bars; everyone seems to live exactly halfway between cool and adorable. The moment Arquette and Madonna finally collide is perfection, a tiny spark the whole film’s been quietly building to.

It begins clumsily and lands a bit soft, but in between it looks and sounds fantastic. Messy? Definitely. But it’s a world I’d happily get lost in again.