I’m always most intrigued by the movies that are toughest to write capsule blurbs for. Case in point: the indie film Maddie’s Secret, currently playing at Partizanfilm in Burlington and the Savoy Theater in Montpelier. Comedian John Early wrote, directed and stars as the female title character. The title itself nods to the 1986 TV movie Kate’s Secret, in which Meredith Baxter — queen of Lifetime reruns — played a woman with bulimia.
All this might lead you to expect a broad drag-based comedy, perhaps deliberately designed to offend modern sensibilities. (Making light of eating disorders? Way out of bounds.) But Maddie’s Secret, which premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, is something else again.
The deal
Millennial vegetarian Maddie Ralph (Early) works as a dishwasher at an LA food-content company called Gourmaybe with her sassy friend Deena (Kate Berlant). One day, Maddie’s husband, Jake (Eric Rahill), posts a video of her preparing one of her own recipes. It goes viral, catapulting Maddie to on-camera stardom.
But even as Maddie celebrates healthy eating, she has a secret: She’s insecure about her body, with a history of bulimia tied to her toxic relationship with her chain-smoking, meat-loving mom (Kristen Johnston). The stress of auditioning for the coveted role of consultant to the food-themed TV show “The Boar” starts Maddie down a dangerous road of binging and purging, with some big lies to Jake along the way. Can she deal with her issues before she dance-aerobicizes herself to death?
Will you like it?
Some viewers find it difficult to process a parody or pastiche that shows no contempt for its subject — that, in fact, takes its subject seriously. Those viewers may struggle with Maddie’s Secret, as will anyone expecting gags and belly laughs. Rather than skewer recovery melodramas, Early deploys their comfortingly familiar story beats with affection. The film’s gentle humor buffers the uncomfortable truth at its core: Despite foodie culture and body positivity, eating disorders persist.
Early’s performance as Maddie — who, the script makes clear, is a cis woman — lacks the theatrical exaggeration traditionally associated with drag. Fans of the cult Canadian sketch series “The Kids in the Hall” will recognize the actor’s approach: Female mannerisms are always subtle and secondary to the character’s individuality.
Shy, blond and prone to pastels, Maddie is a “good girl” who would rather eat her dark side than confront it. Her early scenes with Berlant — whose “bad girl” lesbian character never fully gels — have some of the silly, stagy line readings of traditional parodies. Yet the better we know Maddie, the more nuanced and sympathetic she becomes. There’s relatable truth in her dysfunctional coping strategies: repressing her self-hatred so she can be a role model, wrapping herself in a web of lies rather than tell Jake she doesn’t want kids because she’s terrified of becoming her mother.
Cinematographer Max Lakner gives Maddie’s Secret a lush prettiness more reminiscent of midcentury melodramas than of ’80s TV movies. Shades of pink and magenta and dramatic lighting abound, though corny montages, expressive slow motion and freeze frames don’t get short shrift, either. The movie has some surreally grotesque moments, as when Maddie’s mom torments her by mailing her boxes of juicy steaks. (They come from the “Rutland Meat Company,” which isn’t the only Vermont shout-out in the movie; Jake gives Maddie a cradle handcrafted by a friend he met at Middlebury College.)
Like many films that mix tones and genres, Maddie’s Secret has uneven pacing, with some sections wandering from vignette to vignette. Once Maddie is sent to an inpatient recovery program, however, the movie locks in, committing to the Girl, Interrupted tropes. As fellow patients who are the Pink Ladies to Maddie’s Sandra Dee (in the words of an acerbic nurse), Leah Hennessey, Emily Allan and Vanessa Bayer sink their teeth into the roles with so much comic panache that we may be startled to find ourselves tearing up. Maddie’s confrontation with her mom in therapy is hyperbolically horrific, yet it ends with a perfect line reading by Johnson that grounds it in reality.
That’s typical of Maddie’s Secret; just when we’re ready to write it off as one thing, it mutates into something else. In a hyperconscious age, when YouTube media critics dissect the stylistic conventions underlying every story, perhaps it’s inevitable that parody would become the new sincerity. Horror comedies such as the popular “Widow’s Bay,” for instance, celebrate genre clichés more than they debunk them.
Maddie’s Secret is melodrama without guilt — just a little wink and nudge so we all understand this is real-life trauma with better lighting and the rough edges sanded off. We crave the softening and sweetening of Lifetime movies, Early suggests, the way we crave food with a pretty presentation. But we can still draw nourishment from the harder truths beneath.
If you like this, try…
John Early: Now More Than Ever (2023; HBO Max): Early’s comedy special features both standup and song performances.
Showgirls (1995; PLEX, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Tubi, rentable): The director has cited Paul Verhoeven’s notorious campfest about an aspiring dancer as an inspiration for Maddie’s Secret, along with the films of Douglas Sirk, John Waters and (of course) vintage “problem of the week” TV movies.
“The Bear” (five seasons, 2022-2026; Disney+, Hulu): Beloved and debated by foodies and drama fans alike, the model for “The Boar” chronicles the transformation of a Chicago sandwich shop into a fine-dining restaurant. It just finished its final season.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Maddie’s Secret”
This article appears in July 15 • 2026.
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