Writer-director John Early’s comic melodrama Maddie’s Secret is inventive, sometimes bracingly so. Early also stars as the kind and modest Maddie, who lives with her adoring husband Jake (Eric Rahill). Maddie is a passionate foodie who doesn’t get to show off her culinary genius in her job as a dishwasher at a content mill, churning out celebrity cooking shows for social media’s unquenchable appetite. A personal video goes viral, and Maddie’s company propels her into celebrity chefdom.
Thing is, Maddie has been hiding her light under a bushel because she has an eating disorder with hurtful body image issues. Now, she is trapped into the role of a public-facing Internet sensation who is expected to spend her life celebrating food. All the time, she is desperately hiding her disorder from everyone, including Jake and her best friend Deena (Kate Berlant). That’s a conflict-laden situation that could launch a comedy, a drama, or, in the case of Maddie’s Secret, both.
Here’s the comedy – Maddie’s Secret is an homage to the television disease-of-the-week movies of the late 20th Century, with all the tropes of melodrama, including the overwrought line readings. It also savagely sends up LA’s content creation industry. This aspect of Maddie’s Secret is broadly funny; after all, Maddie’s Secret was written by a comic, almost all of the cast are comedians and the protagonist is played by an actor in drag.
But Early mocks the over-earnestness of the issue movie genre while taking the issue itself seriously. Maddie really is suffering from a real disorder. Maddie’s Secret never soft-pedals the physical and emotional consequences of Maddie’s bulimia. Just as heart-breaking are the impacts to Maddie’s closest relationships as she lies to cover it all up. (Indeed, in a panic, she tells Jake the worst possible lie to mask her purging.) There are moments in Maddie’s Secret that are as funny as a heart attack – literally.
Early’s real triumph here is in balancing the tones of the movie – somehow the silliness of the send-up doesn’t interfere with the melodrama.
Early is also excellent in portraying Maddie’s decent soul and damaged psyche, her hidden pain and self-loathing. Berlant and Rahill are especially good as Deena and Jake. So is Kristen Johnson as Maddie’s nightmarish mother Beverlee.
Maddie’s Secret opens this weekend at theaters including the Landmark Opera Plaza in San Francisco, Alamo Drafthouse in Mountain View, and, in LA, Laemmle’s Monica Film Center, Town Center 5, Glendale and Tasveer Film Center.