She Wasn’t Mad, Just Bored – Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Lovely Susanna Arquette in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

There’s a moment in the eighties cult film “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985) when Roberta, a bored and unfulfilled housewife played by Rosanna Arquette, is sitting cross-legged on a nicely made bed in her pristine New Jersey home, and flipping through personal ads like she’s turning the pages of a dream. Her husband, oblivious, mutters something off-screen, and you can feel her breath catch—not from passion, but from a quiet despair. This is not a woman drowning in tragedy, but one suffocating in beige. Her suburban life is carefully arranged, a composition of correct choices: a respectable marriage, a tidy home, a life that looks perfect in photographs but flickers ghost-like in her eyes. She is not unloved, but unknown. And that, perhaps, is lonelier.

What strikes me most about Roberta is not how lost she is, but how close she is to awakening. Like many women trapped in comfort, all it takes is a gust of wind, a glance at someone freer, messier, wilder, for her soul to stir. In this case, it’s a thrift store Madonna in a pyramid jacket: Susan. A woman living by her own rules. Roberta starts following the messages in the newspapers left for Susan. Susan is not just a character. She is a mirror held up to every Roberta who’s ever softened herself into invisibility. And so, Roberta follows her. Not just through the alleys of New York, but through the hidden corridors of her own desires.

When Roberta loses her memory, it’s not a gimmick; it’s liberation. She forgets her old self and slips, barefoot and free, into the velvet-lined life of Susan. It is theatrical, yes, but also archetypal. The loss of the performative self, the one we curate for approval, to meet family’s expectations, to ‘deserve’ love from our partner, to feel worthy even in our own eyes. In Susan’s flamboyant, magical do-what-ever-you-want world, Roberta is seen dancing, taking a lover, wearing a vintage pair of boots. She stumbles, yes – but also glows. Her softness isn’t erased, it’s just no longer buried. Most importantly: she becomes visible. To herself and to others.

What does this say about us – those who secretly write our own ‘personal ads’ inside journal pages, Spotify playlists, drafts of love letters? Those who crave adventure but still kiss the air of familiar rooms? The story of Roberta reminds us that transformation doesn’t always arrive with violence or drama. Sometimes, it comes with eyeliner and a subway token. A life reimagined one street corner at a time. Oh, and how much fun it can be! Having once tasted the freedom, the adventure, the passion, the fun, Roberta doesn’t want to go back to her suburbian pretense. ‘The wasted years, the wasted youth’, like in that Marina and the Diamonds song. But Roberta woke up in time, while she still has life to live.

There’s a subtle alchemy here. Many of us women have lived as Roberta for a time; over-accommodated, emotionally underfed, quietly aching for someone to see us. And perhaps, like Roberta, we’ve looked out the window and seen a more electric version of life passing by, wearing fishnets and laughing too loudly. And maybe we thought: I could be like her too! If only… But when the special moment comes there is no more excuses to go out and live and be.

There is nothing to be ashamed about in having such longings. I don’t see it as a passive waste of time, but rather as a compass. Longing tells us what we’re built for: colour, movement, heat, wild intimacy, kisses on rooftops under starry nights, spontaneity, curiosity… And not just with a lover; but with life itself. Roberta’s journey isn’t about becoming a copy of Susan; it’s about becoming free. Her marriage wasn’t evil. It was simply hollow. She needed more than just a man who is ‘nice’. She needed to risk something. And perhaps this is the quiet lesson the film offers: that a woman does not need to burn her whole world to the ground in order to reawaken. Sometimes, she just needs to misplace her purse, put on the wrong earrings, and walk out the door. When the film begins Roberta seems like a desperate character, but when the film ends we see just how much she has opened up and bloomed into what she truly was inside. She is on the other side and she is happier.