SHOW NOTES: E13 – Desperately Seeking Susan

Podcast: The Shermer High Alumni Association
Release Date: 9/23/25

This week’s movie

Synopsis

In New York City, bored housewife Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) spends her days glued to the personal ads, fascinated by the mysterious exchanges between two strangers: “Desperately Seeking Susan.” When curiosity gets the better of her, Roberta tracks down the elusive Susan (Madonna), a free-spirited drifter who embodies everything Roberta wishes she could be.

But when a bump on the head leaves Roberta with amnesia, the lines between her life and Susan’s begin to blur. Mistaken identities, mix-ups, and a stolen pair of sequined jackets plunge her into a whirlwind of comedy, danger, and downtown New York nightlife.

Actors & Crew

Rosanna Arquette – Rosanna Arquette is an actress, director, and producer best known for her eclectic film career in the 1980s and beyond. Born into the famous Arquette acting family, she broke through with roles in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan.

Arquette became known for playing complex, offbeat women in both indie films and Hollywood productions, including Silverado, The Big Blue (1988), and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. She later worked as a documentary filmmaker, directing Searching for Debra Winger, which explored the struggles of women in Hollywood.

Throughout her career, Rosanna has been celebrated for her naturalistic style, her commitment to independent cinema, and her influence on female representation in film.
Madonna – By 1985, Madonna was already a pop superstar, but Desperately Seeking Susan marked her breakout as an actress. Playing the free-spirited and magnetic Susan, Madonna brought her real-life downtown New York persona onto the screen, blurring the line between character and icon. This film became a cult hit and helped cement her as more than a music sensation — she became a cultural force in fashion and film.

Her acting career continued with a mix of successes and experiments, including Shanghai Surprise, Dick Tracy, A League of Their Own, and Evita, where she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress. Lest we forget, she also starred in Who’s That Girl, the Dutch oven that was released in 1987, which she co-starred with Griffin Dunne, fun fact. While often polarizing as an actress, Desperately Seeking Susan remains the defining performance that captured Madonna at the height of her early influence.
Aidan Quinn – Aidan Quinn is an actor whose career spans film, television, and stage. He made his feature film debut in Reckless,, but it was his role in Desperately Seeking Susan that brought him widespread recognition. Playing Dez, the sensitive projectionist who gets caught up in Roberta and Susan’s chaotic world, Quinn stood out as a romantic lead with depth and charm.

From there, he built a diverse career with roles in films such as Stakeout, Legends of the Fall, Michael Collins, and Practical Magic, all of which sound like movies we’ve never seen. On television, he earned acclaim for his work in An Early Frost, one of the first major network films to deal with AIDS, and later starred in the long-running show, Elementary.
Supporting cast:
- Laurie Metcalf – we know her, we love her. We know her from: Roseanne, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Monk, Desperate Housewives, Big Bang Theory, Lady Bird….but most notably, Andy’s mom in the Toy Story movies
- Steven Wright – stand-up comedian known for his deadpan voice. He was ranked as the 15th Greatest Comedian by Rolling Stone in its 2017 list of the 50 Greatest Stand-up Comics. We’ve seen Steven around in productions such as So I Married An Axe Murderer & Natural Born Killers.
Budget $5 million
Box office $27.3 million
Release date April 12, 1985
Orion (production company) campaigned for Barbra Streisand to play the title role. The filmmakers initially wanted Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn to play Roberta and Susan, but the director decided to cast newcomers Arquette and Madonna instead and the studio wanted the movie to have younger actors in order to appeal to younger filmgoers. Bruce Willis was up for the role of Dez and Melanie Griffith was up for the role of Susan. Madonna obtained the role over Ellen Barkin and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Suzanne Vega also auditioned for the role.
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of a possible four, saying it was essentially a screwball comedy, which “bopped around New York, introducing us to unforgettable characters.
In her review for The New Yorker, critic Pauline Kael referred to Madonna as “an indolent, trampy goddess.
The New York Times included the movie among the 10 best films of 1985, while the New York Post called it “the most entertaining new movie of the year”. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked the film among their 100 Greatest Movj/jyies of the 1980s, calling it “a classic of its particular era”.
Paul Attanasio of the Washington Post, considered the film “the first big yuppie movie of the ’80s”, and further explained that yuppies were “the first generation to grow up exclusively on mass-marketed culture.”
The movie also has been noted as a “cult feminist classic”. In 2022, Mental Floss considered the film “still packs a powerful feminist punch” and that at the time, and even somewhat by today’s standards Desperately Seeking Susan “was revolutionary in that it featured two female leads and was written, produced, and directed by women”.