Desperately Seeking Susan

Mired in suburban wedlock Roberta (Arquette) turns to the personal ads for vicarious romance, with unexpected results. Seidelman brings a hip '80s SoHo sensibility to this emancipated screwball comedy, even if the plotting (a mistaken identity farce involving that old chestnut, amnesia brought on by a bump to the head) is square as a square peg. Madonna has never found a better fit than the role of Susan, a thrift-store free spirit - and even then Arquette gives as good as she gets with a deliciously kooky comic turn. Followers of indepedent American cinema should keep an eye out for John Turturro, Richard Edson, John Lurie, Giancarlo Esposito, Anne Carlisle, Victor Argo, Richard Hell and Rockets Redglare, among others.