Leontine Cinema presents a 40th anniversary screening of Desperately Seeking Susan! Dressing up as Madonna or in 80's attire encouraged!
Desperately Seeking Susan explores two different women trading lives. Madonna—in her first film role—plays the titular New Wave-ish character, while Rosanna Arquette plays Roberta, a bored New Jersey housewife looking for adventure. Coming off co-writing and directing the accomplished Smithereens, director Susan Seidelman continued her exploration of messy female protagonists and themes of transformation and reinvention.
Seidelman described the movie as her version of a screwball comedy. The film came out during a time when more women started directing studio films. It’s one of the first instances of a woman directing two female leads, and the producers, screenwriter, and studio executive are women, too. Forty years later, DSS is a hilarious dive into female identity and a New York that hardly exists anymore. Then newcomers Laurie Metcalf, John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, and Steven Wright give great performances alongside a catchy score and Madonna’s exclusive-to-the-movie hit “Into the Groove.”