Maddie Ralph (played by John Early) is a sweet and self-effacing dishwasher with an unearthly talent for vegetarian cooking. When a viral recipe video sends her up the ranks at the test kitchen where she works, the pressures of her newfound success trigger an old and dangerous habit. Packaged within a satire of tryhard millennial femininity is a melodrama about a woman undone by her bulimia.
Although the film isn’t disclosed as a direct parody, Maddie’s Secret mirrors the 1986 tv movie Kate’s Secret, about a suburban housewife battling a closeted eating disorder. While Kate buckles under the pressure of her husband’s ambition, Maddie struggles under the weight of her own. Faithful to the typical melodrama storyline, both films depict the breakdown of hyper-curated, feminine characters with excessive style and heightened emotion. Early gives the movie-of-the-week a millennial software update, casting Maddie as the face of Instagram foodporn.
Better known for playing narcissistic gay men like Elliot in Search Party, Early plays Maddy as a cisgendered woman. While drag usually turns a film into a parody, his performance is straight out of a melodrama. Maddie is the ultimate people-pleaser, excessively kind and deferent, labeled as both “perfect” and a “tryhard.” While she’s the kind of girl who’s easy to mock (see Gen Z’s skewering of millennial earnestness,) Early never makes her the butt of the joke. He plays her with the tragedy and glamor of an old Hollywood ingenue, albeit with an almost perpetual smear of aioli on his chin. This big-hearted approach is what makes the film work as he has to land both a satire of millennial femininity and a wrenching story of bulimia (Maddie’s traumas are unearthed and her guise of perfection is shattered in the end.)
‘Maddie’s Secret’
Early faces the challenge of how to make a melodrama in an irony-drenched zeitgeist, where audiences ache for sincerity and struggle not to laugh at it. Is it possible to make a 21st century melodrama without the knowing wink of satire? Maddie’s Secret tries to do it all, mixing tragedy and parody in a visually stunning package.
The film is rich with old Hollywood craftsmanship. The deep shadows and bright, jewel-toned lighting create a heightened world where the heavy material is integrated with parody. Maddie’s house is lit in deep oranges and blues, casting a wash of magic over Maddie’s purging rituals–meanwhile her husband Jake (played by Eric Rahill) dances to his headphones in the next room. The horror of her bulimia and the comedy of his obliviousness work together in the stylized world.
The tonal shifts get rocky, however, when Maddie checks into an inpatient facility. At her rock bottom, the material is too maudlin and the setting too clinical for the jokes to land. Kate Berlant, who plays the maniacal lesbian best friend Geena, gets the biggest laughs but sticks out like a sore thumb in these dramatic scenes. When Maddie is in her darkest hour, Berlant busts in like she’s in an SNL sketch —with the imbalance of tone breaking our suspension of disbelief.
Early’s reverent and oddly devastating performance anchors the film. He plays Maddie with the sensuality of a cardigan hanging off one shoulder, while his wide-eyed nervous laughter reveals someone addicted to control. He pushes a cross-dressing performance beyond the limits of parody and embodies Maddie with specificity and grace.
