Desperately Seeking Susan

Madonna remains the movie’s megawatt performance and drips with the knowing charisma of a star whose time has come.

A few scenes are very funny, but the picture would have worked much better if Seidelman had thrown away half the dialogue and built some momentum.

An attractive, energetic young cast and some witty, off-center visual humor make the resultant laughs more than worth the wait.

More central to the popularity of "Susan" is the way it allows the audience to feel hip.

"Desperately Seeking Susan" (accurately rated PG-13) is a lark, an exhilarating celebration of people who have the good sense to be in touch with themselves and with each other.

All of this is cause for consistent smiling and a few outright laughs, without ever building to complete comedy.

Blessed with the right script and cast, Seidelman crafts the perfect tone – a grounded whimsy that allows the fairy tale elements to take flight.

This modern bohemian take on the classic screwball comedy (complete with amnesia, mistaken identity, and a stolen treasure treated as second-hand jewelry) is also a great time capsule of the New York street culture of the 1980s.

...rough-edged and willing to be weird; its interiors and lighting are more extreme, its characters are grittier...

Oozing New Wave attitude and drenched in NYC ambience.