But other than getting a new hairdo and being bizarrely fixated on personal ads, there's not any real motivation given to establish why Roberta's so darn enervated. When Roberta disappears apr's head bonk, there is a brief obligatory conversation between Gary and Leslie to establish that he's in the midst of an affair a conversation that seems awkwardly shoehorned in to make it okay that Roberta runs off, has a fling with Aidan Quinn and then doesn't want to come home when Gary finally tracks her down. Gary's not a bad looking guy, he makes great money, and in the one or two scenes they have together, he treats her quite well. Dear God life in the suburbs! Married to a spa salesman! Put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger right now! But you know, with fifteen years perspective under my belt I just don't see what the hell Roberta had to be so whiny about. Gary (Mark Blum) is a successful owner of a chain of pool-and-spa stores called Gary's Oasis, and he's portrayed as a bit of a doof.īack when I was a young 80s hipster myself, I swallowed the premise hook, line and sinker. When next we see Roberta, she's wearing a horrid pink Stepford Wife cocktail dress and serving hors d'oeuvres to guests who have assembled to view her husband's latest commercial. Obviously, if she's getting her legs waxed and reading personals, her life must be pretty darned empty. Sitting under the dryers, Roberta swoons over the passion of the personal ads to her sister-in-law, Leslie (Laurie Metcalf). We see her in that cinematic temple to the jaded domestic goddess, the beauty parlor. It is established from the opening credits that Roberta is a Bored Housewife.
But even more than the gallery of wacky fashions, what places this movie solidly in its time is the sheer naive self-centeredness of the film's characters. As someone who once had eggplant-colored hair and dressed exclusively in thrift store finds I can assure you that, for better or worse, we did. "Gad, did we actually dress like that?" one might wonder upon a fresh viewing of Susan.
Strip away the torn fishnets and the techno-pop soundtrack, and the story is the sort of mistaken identity screwball comedy that would have once starred June Allison or Carole Lombard. In the course of the remarkably complicated plot, Roberta gets bonked on the head, loses her memory, is mistaken for Susan, falls for Aidan's blue eyes and is menaced by a killer looking for stolen Egyptian earrings. Rosanna Arquette (still looking too young for the role) plays Roberta Glass, a bored New Jersey housewife who becomes obsessed with the exploits of Jim and Susan, a wild-and-crazy couple who leave messages for each other in the personals. But my first viewing of Desperately Seeking Susan during it's 1985 release was in spite of Madonna not because of her, and the only thing that kept me plastered to my seat was the hypnotic baby blues of Aidan Quinn.įifteen years after it's initial release, Desperately Seeking Susan stands as both a charming little movie and a brilliant artifact of the 1980s. I must admit that over the years my antipathy has faded to something closer to ennui, however combined with a grudging admiration for her marketing savvy and business sense. I didn't care if Henry Rollins thought she was cool from the very first time I saw her writhing on the floor on MTV in her underpants she represented everything I hated about dance music, trashy slut-girls and 80's fashion. I wore all black and hung with the boys 'til daybreak, usually capping the night with a maple bar at Randy's Donuts, sucking down bad coffee under the world-famous giant brown O.Īnd I hated Madonna. I never shaved my head or had anything pierced, but I listened to Fear, Agent Orange, Dead Kennedys and the hundreds of screeching just-out-of-the-garage bands that played the nightly bills at L.A.'s firetrap headbanger nightspots. In my late teen years the early dawn of the 1980s my best friend and I used to joke that some day in the far-off future our children would ask us, "Mommy? Were you punk or were you disco?" The DVD Journal: Desperately Seeking Susanĭesperately Seeking Susan MGM Home Video Starring Starring Rosanna Arquette, Aidan Quin,