Desperately Seeking Susan

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) is Susan Seidelman's screwball crime comedy, and you can watch online on iFILM. Roberta, a restless New Jersey housewife, kills time reading the personal ads and gets hooked on one running message: "Desperately Seeking Susan."

Who is this Susan that someone keeps trying to track down? Bored out of her mind, Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) starts shadowing the woman through those same ads, buys her jacket, copies her style, and slips further into a stranger's world without noticing. A knock on the head, a bout of amnesia, two women confused for each other — and suddenly Roberta is taken for Susan herself. Madonna plays Susan in her first major film role, while a man who wants her dead and a pair of stolen Egyptian earrings drag everyone into real danger.

Mid-eighties Manhattan is shot like one long downtown party, which is part of why the movie became such a time capsule — that, plus Madonna at peak fame and a bench of future stars in the margins: John Turturro, Laurie Metcalf, Giancarlo Esposito. It's loose, goofy and charmingly scrappy, built on the simple thrill of finding someone else's life more interesting than your own. Stream Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) online on iFILM.