You will need a bit of an orientation before checking out “Maddie’s Secret” (2025) or else if you go in cold, you may be too busy figuring out what is going on to be unable to just watch and see if you like the movie. Writer and director John Early, a cis gay man, stars as Maddie, but he is playing Maddie as if she is a cis heterosexual woman. Maddie is not a trans woman and Early is kind of doing drag but is playing her straight, not in an exaggerated style. If there is an implicit commentary on what these choices say about gender and sexuality, I’m not the one who will be exploring it at this time though ideas flitted around. This remake of “Kate’s Secret” (1986) is set in contemporary Los Angeles, but in the style of a Fifties melodrama with Maddie Ralph as an aspiring chef who works for Gourmaybe, an online channel that offers cooking content, as a dishwasher with her best friend, Deena (Kate Berlant, who is the second coming of Kathryn Hahn), who clearly wants to be more than a friend and gets passive aggressive when she does not get what she wants. When her adoring husband, Jake (Eric Rahill), decides to record an average dinner at their house then throws it on the web, Maddie is propelled into the online spotlight, but it also throws her into a tailspin as she falls off the wagon and triggers her issues with bulimia. Early’s first film does a lot well but plays with so much that it is hard to know what he wants audiences to take away from their viewing experience.
When “Maddie’s Secret” opens, it is reminiscent of a lot of films about buxom blondes with body image issues living what should be an ideal life in the big city from Amy Schumer’s “I Feel Pretty” (2018) to “Brittany Runs a Marathon” (2019), but those movies are about aspiring for more than the perfect body whereas Maddie already has everything that she wants and quickly gets more. Nope, it is supposed to be a movie that depicts Maddie’s struggle with bulimia earnestly even though it is so over the top, it is hard to believe it is the center of the plot and to give it your full attention. If Early had slowed down a beat and spent more time focusing on Maddie before she gets triggered, it may have helped.
Maddie is not perfect, but she is close to it. She is sensuous and in touch with her body: running to work, reveling in food, engaging in a (mostly) healthy sex life and instinctually executing dance choreography. What is not shown until way later is how others’ agenda for her life is unwanted and triggers her even when the agenda is positive. Jake accelerates her success, supports his wife’s career and recognizes and encourages her gifts, but also wants her to reap the rewards so they can financially afford to repair their house and have a baby. Early should have hinted earlier the dissonance in their goals but is satisfied with just showing how Jake’s appreciation of her body only further triggers her body issues. Meanwhile Deena is introduced preferring to keep Maddie in her place and accessible then resents when Deena ‘s success means less time to hang out.
Early misses an opportunity to hammer home an implied concept teased throughout “Maddie’s Secret.” The acceleration of Maddie’s success without having the time to physically acclimate to each phase is as much of a trigger as calling her mom, Beverlee (Kristen Johnston). The physical sensation of bulimia familiarizes new experiences that feel hostile, which includes an unwanted rivalry with Emily (Claudia O’Doherty), a more senior chef whom Maddie admires, who picks up on Maddie’s body insecurity and exploits it further. Maddie’s self-imposed image as a good girl gets punctured when her anger erupts in brief spurts to either indicate the origin of her disorder or a long overdue clapback.
Story aside, “Maddie’s Secret” is at its best when it is random such as the “Fame” dance classes. These dance sequences are amazing and Early and Berlant’s ability to keep up with the clearly professional dancers (Lake Dorn, Anthony Garza, Carlos Irizarry, Mishay Petronelli, Johnny Rice) deserves all the accolades. The workplace dynamics at Gourmaybe or the Rosenthorn Center for Adults with Eating Disorders at Presbyterian Hospital begin to overshadow Maddie’s plight. There is a television series called “The Boar,” clearly meant to be a tongue in cheek reference to “The Bear,” that shifts the goal posts for the chefs at Gourmaybe with cameraman Kyle (Gordon Landenberger) clearly in Maddie’s corner. Did Kyle get his full paycheck or not? Around forty-eight minutes into the story, the physical effects of bulimia take center stage thus the location shift to the hospital. Shawna (Helen Berlant, Kate’s mom), is the receptionist and blind as a bat. Nurse Kelly (Pat Regan) and Nurse Hammond (Dominique Witten) wrangle the rebellious patients.
Unfortunately, the second half of “Maddie’s Secret” loses momentum and feels a bit like a spoof of “Girl, Interrupted” (1999) and is so exaggerated that it renders the depiction of treatment of eating disorders almost useless. If you are unfamiliar with bulimia’s side effects, it will take a minute for the audience to realize that Early is still playing it straight, and it is literally as serious as a heart attack. Brittany (Ruby McCollister), Connie (Emily Allan) and Amanda (Emily Allan) are part of a mean girl clique, and in contrast, Maddie’s roommate, Julie (Vanessa Bayer), is painfully oblivious and exhibits arrested development. The patient dynamic jokes land with a thud, which means that a huge stretch of the movie is not educational enough for audiences to walk away from the movie with more awareness of the eating disorder but is not funny enough to maintain the earlier tone of the film and sustain entertainment value.
“The Boar” thread kind of feels thrown in there and not fully developed though it had a lot of potential. The idea of storytelling through cooking is never fully explored, but there is a reason. There is one story that Maddie does not want to share because it reveals how her eating disorder starts: how she became a vegetarian. New filmmakers make a first movie as if they will never get another chance to make a movie and stuff everything in there. Early needed to whittle down some of his ideas if he had a serious message that he wanted to convey, or he needed to find a way to maintain the humorous tone of the first forty-eight minutes into the remainder without diminishing the seriousness of the subject because the result means that nothing comes in for a safe landing. Surprisingly, Emily’s story feels complete since she is the star of her personal, mostly offscreen “All About Eve” (1950), and Maddie’s sudden nastiness helps her wake up and expect more from herself. Maddie descends into the stylized atmosphere of the genres, which Early successfully emulates, but overall feels less authentic in the way that it resolves her issues, especially the pulled punch with her marriage problem or her relationship with fellow patients. When her story ends, it feels unfinished.
“Maddie’s Secret” is well intentioned and earnest, but the excellent ingredients do not add up to a coherent whole. Early needs to spread out his ideas among different projects instead of overstuffing one film. Also in a day and age where the LGBTQ+ community is experiencing a world reverting to its original hate settings, Early’s commitment to his vision without letting any external factors change it is admirable, but it also means that his audience and message may not hit at this moment, but will find its home in another era.
