Maddie’s Secret whips up an all-you-can-eat buffet of camp and sincerity, but it’s an acquired taste. Writer/director/star John Early (Stress Positions) pays homage to everything from John Waters flicks to Lifetime TV movies in this odd duck about a dishwasher and aspiring chef who finds a big break on a social media cooking channel. He also pays tribute to the women who inspire buxom dishes in campy films, TV movies, and Instagram doomscrolling. And what better way to pay tribute to said women than by playing the female lead himself?
Early’s casting stunt seeks to be a key ingredient of Maddie’s Secret, but it’s a peculiar flavour that overwhelms everything else. The film admittedly has a novel hook by casting its male creator as the female lead. It never overtly addresses the casting of a man as the presumably cisgender woman in the lead, outside of recurring close-ups to Maddie’s man hands brutalizing ingredients in the kitchen. The girl chops with relentlessly pep.
Alternatively, Maddie’s Secret accentuates the awkwardness of the casting a little too much with wink-wink guffaws. Take for example, when Maddie’s bestie Deena (Katie Berlant) walks in on her changing. Cut to a close-up of Maddie’s smooth and bulge-free panties. Or fast-forward to a session in a queer aerobics class where Maddie introduces herself as an ally. She saunters through a chorus of transpeople and effete gays thrusting their junk for the camera.
Early obvious seems to be enjoying himself and Maddie’s Secret earnestly sparkles with its over-the-top deadpan queerness. Perhaps there’s something radical about injecting a sense of gender fluidity to a fable about food influencers and bulimia and not asking a plus-sized woman to endure countless jokes. However, the movies to which Maddie’s Secret pays homage are products of their time, immortalised by camp value that crackles like fire on VHS. Sure, there’s a chuckle to be found in seeing a man playing a wholesome plain Jane in a wig. In 2026, however, it’s a drag.
Much of Maddie’s Secret hinges on the audience having a laugh over a man in a dress. The flippant genderfuck conceit plays like sour milk in béchamel sauce. At a time when casting cisgender actors to play trans characters ignites deserved pushback, tethering the film to a one-note drag and/or chick-with-possibly-a-dick joke seems passé. Early could have easily excelled with this project by gifting Maddie’s gee-golly-gosh moxie to another actress. The casting also illustrates how Maddie’s Secret falls victim to another cooking proviso. Just because one has a cupboard full of spices doesn’t mean one needs to use all of them.
Early ambitiously tackles the mindlessness of contemporary influencer culture as Maddie just wants to cook vegetarian food that pleases her husband, Jake (Eric Rahill). However, Maddie becomes a viral sensation after Jake posts a video of her whipping up a Filipino-inspired eggplant smash burger. The smash success inspires the digital cooking network Gourmaybe to promote Maddie from dishwasher to on-camera chef overnight.
That unlikely rise excites Maddie, but it also triggers a dark aspect of her past. As competition heats up with the platform’s other top chef (Claudia O’Doherty), Maddie feels insecure about her shapely body. She finds herself binging and purging as a long-suppressed eating disorder surfaces.
As Maddie’s Secret veers through its chaotic tonal shifts and narrative rabbit holes, Early brings the story into Girl, Interrupted mode when Maddie undergoes treatment. The film finds a dark edginess that contrasts with the gauzy soft lighting of the first acts. Maddie’s Secret mines its heroine’s plucky demeanour and the traumatic roots of her insatiable love for food. Unfortunately, this turn leads to a climax in which Early finds himself completely outmatched by co-star Kristen Johnston, who delivers a hilariously knockout turn as Maddie’s mother. She flattens Early more hungrily than Maddie smashes an eggplant. It’s a terrific scene, but the secret ingredient of Maddie’s Secret ends up being the source of the protagonist’s trauma.
Astutely casting Johnston in this small but meaty role, however, illustrates the promise that Early shows as a director even if his own performance proves a weaker element. It’s a facet of first feature syndrome. Newcomers often wear too many hats. The multi-hyphenate game arguably reflects budgetary constraints as much as it does a desire for creative autonomy, but the risk doesn’t rely fly in a film with such a distinctly leftist critical eye for pop culture. One only wonders how well Maddie’s Secret could have realised its comedic gumbo with further consideration of its lead. The recipe nearly delivers success.
