Underrated: Madonna

In many ways, Madge is as much a victim of typecasting as anything else. Had she not so brilliantly cemented her kooky wild child persona in 1985 indie Desperately Seeking Susan - the movie that 20 years on still comes closest to capturing that alluring combo on sexual allure and girlish vulnerability - she might have found it easier to confound expectations in her follow-up projects. Certainly audiences found it hard to accept her as a comic-book vamp in 1990’s Dick Tracy or as a gum-chewing female baseball player in A League Of Their Own. If they did, though, it was their loss, the singer-cum-actress revealing an eye-catching talent for colourful support that suggested her future lay more in character parts than in leading roles.

Not that the latter were beyond her, as her startling turn as Eva Peron in Evita proved (that she missed out on an Oscar nod for the musical must surely rate as one of the Academy’s most flagrant injustices). If Madonna is to be congratulated for anything, though, it’s her willingness to collaborate with her generation’s most singular cinema talents. Abel Ferrara, Wayne Wang, Spike Lee: all have benefited in some capacity from her patronage. The trend continues in 2007 with Luc Besson’s Arthur And The Invisibles, an animated fantasy in which she can be heard - wait for it - as a cartoon elf. Now who says Mrs Ritchie has no sense of humour?

 

 

By Neil Smith