June 10th, 2025 | 7 doors, 7:30 show
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.”