Desperate for a Time When Madonna Was Cool? Desperately Seeking Susan is Deliciously '80s

Before she was the dreadfully boring "Material Mom" with a fake British accent, Madonna was pushing the limits of fashion and sexuality. In the 1980s, Madonna had a calculated bad-girl persona, but it seemed more natural than any of her subsequent incarnations. Nowadays, her antics just seem phony. That kiss with Britney and Christina seemed like a pathetic attempt to remain relevant. I like to think that the gum-chewing, kleptomaniac vixen she plays in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) is the real Madonna.

Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) and Susan (Madonna) may look alike, but their lives couldn't be more different. While Roberta lives comfortably in suburban New Jersey with her pool salesman husband Gary (Mark Blum), Susan is a wanderer who scrapes by on petty theft and charm. At the start of the film, Susan steals some cash and a pair of unique earrings from the luggage of her sleeping bedmate in Atlantic City. Upon arriving in New York City, Susan discovers that the man she slept with and stole from has been murdered, and now she is wanted by the mob.

Meanwhile, Susan has an on-again off-again romance with a musician named Jim (Robert Joy). Before the days of cell phones, they communicate by placing personal ads in a New York newspaper. The subject of Jim's ads is always "Desperately Seeking Susan," and he tells her to meet at Battery Park.

Since Roberta is a bored and neglected housewife, she become fascinated with the Jim and Susan romance as it plays out in the paper. One day, she makes the trip into New York City to watch the lovebirds meet. Roberta follows Susan to a vintage clothing store where Susan trades in her shiny jacket with a sparkly pyramid on the back. Smitten Roberta buys the coat and, when she finds a locker key in the pocket, places her own ad so she can meet Susan and return the key.

Jim sees the ad and concludes that Susan is in trouble, so he sends his sexy projectionist buddy Dez (Aiden Quinn) to Battery Park to make sure Susan is OK. There's a scuffle with a mob hitman type (we never find out exactly who he is), and Roberta gets knocked unconscious, losing her purse and her memory in the process. Dez assumes that Roberta is Susan, and hilarity ensues. Or rather, I wanted hilarity to ensue, but it never really does.

As far as amnesia comedies go, this one is pretty weak, which is saying a lot. There are soap opera plots that are more plausible. However, it's easy to ignore the ridiculous plot holes and enjoy Madonna's outfits and attitude. The scene where she freshens up in the bathroom and uses the hand dryer for her armpits is truly a classic. It's also amusing to watch her bring Roberta's husband to a punk club.

While Roberta is sweet, and there's nothing to dislike about her, she's not particularly likable either. It's easy for her to take on Susan's identity because she's so boring that she's a blank slate. Roberta's husband, on the other hand, is generically misogynistic. He never takes Roberta's feelings or opinions into consideration but in sort of a bland way. It's necessary for him to be a jerk for this genre of film to function, but I thought his character could have been a bit better rounded. He's also tragically unhip, saying things like "You bought a used jacket? What are we, poor?"

Gary's sister Leslie (Laurie Metcalf from Roseanne) is a typical, pushy, neurotic type, but she's got more life to her character than Gary does and gets to utter the film's best lines including, "Take a valium like a normal person!" when Gary is "eating in the middle of a crisis."

Aiden Quinn is beautiful to look at, and the viewer hopes a romance will develop between him and Roberta, but it's Madonna who really steals the show in Desperately Seeking Susan. When she's not on screen, the movie gets downright boring. The script isn't particularly clever, so it's Madonna/Susan's style that makes her so riveting.

In 1985, Desperately Seeking Susan was a low-budget, escapist, chick flick that doubled as a vehicle for Madonna to sell more records. These days, it's pure '80s nostalgia.