ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES: ‘DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN’
TUESDAY 7/16. Riverdale 10 VIP Cinema. 7 p.m. $12-$14.
In Susan Seidelman’s “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985), Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette) reads the personals section and is taken by the story of the bold and mysterious Susan Thomas (Madonna, in her first major screen role) and Jim Dandy, who — in contrast to her unfulfilling housewife life — appear to be involved in a torrid love affair. While attempting to get a glimpse of the couple in real life after one of their missives names the location of their rendezvous, Roberta has an accident and hits her head, causing her to suffer from a serious bout of amnesia. Finding a copy of the personal ad in her pocket, she — as well as a few other characters, including a dangerous killer — believes herself to be Susan. “Desperately Seeking Susan” falls within the subgenre coined by critic Miriam Bale as “persona swaps,” which she defined as movies about two women whose identities get magically mixed up. The films “have a recognizable, nonrealist tone, a dream logic. They’re psychological, supernatural and, at their best, illuminate very specific aspects of relationships between women. … They indicate that femininity, in particular, is performance.” Get tickets here.
