

You can’t accuse John Early of not committing. Through the majority of his acting career, the comedian has become a reliable avatar for a palpable, toxic, hilarious narcissism, playing characters oblivious to the world outside the bubbles they’ve so thoroughly cultivated. That was particularly evident over four seasons of Search Party, as well as last year’s Stress Positions, a Sundance favorite that exposed the absurdity of living in quarantine over a masked summer. As an agoraphobic tenant in a Brooklyn brownstone, Early took the situation’s disaster and approached it through his very specific kind of self-assured, righteous mania to such an extent that his freak-outs are still rattling around in my brain.
That Maddie’s Secret, his directorial debut, is Early’s biggest commitment to date isn’t just because he goes full drag as the titular heroine. But let’s start there. When he bursts onto the screen jogging around Los Angeles, Early gives the audience a few minutes to wrap their head around his transformation into a blonde aspiring chef. While this isn’t a cheap, shock-worthy gag, he knows he has to recontextualize the reality and humor of his new gender, providing an adjustment period to get on Maddie’s wavelength and see the character as more than one big cosplay. In a satire like this, the laughs start heavy, but Early’s best trick is ending this journey in an earnest, emotionally authentic place. He’s not playing a punchline so much as a humorous, painful truth.
In recent interviews, Early has stated he’d always wanted to play an ingénue. That manifests in Maddie, a foodie working as a dishwasher at “Gourmaybe,” a culinary media company and test kitchen that produces a variety of digital cooking shows and develops up-and-coming chefs. She aspires to get to the next level with her encouraging colleague and friend Dina (longtime collaborator and reliably hilarious Kate Berlant), but struggles to get the attention of her blowhard boss, a Connor O’Malley type (Connor O’Malley) who is too smitten with another female chef. Early heightens the melodrama of these competitive relationships and simultaneously pokes fun at the kitchen politics, but Maddie can’t seem to break through.
Things change one night when Maddie makes a meal at the insistence of her husband (Eric Rahill), who records her preparing a special recipe, edits the video, and immediately watches it go viral. At first ridiculed for her freelancing, she’s quickly promoted to produce more social content. Thrust into the culinary spotlight, Maddie’s dreams start coming true––she becomes the company’s new star, gets recognized, receives special treatment, and is even courted to become an executive producer on hit prestige food show The Boar, which doesn’t even attempt to conceal its parody of the FX series. The only problem? Maddie’s traumatic history with bulimia comes rushing back, threatening to unravel everything she’s worked to accomplish.
Early has a natural way with the camera, leaning on close-ups to capture micro expressions and further sud up all the soapiness. In both words and images, Maddie’s Secret is ripped straight from the afterschool-special playbook. Throughout every scene, characters talk to each other with dialogue that’s too precise, eloquent, and enunciated, just a touch too dramatic, sweet, or nasty that telegraphs all of its intentions. There’s also an inherent humor to watching a Lifetime-like movie contend with contemporary culture, and Early has fun mimicking the kind of uninspiring, recipe-trying brain-rot that filters through social media algorithms by couching it in warm light, smiley language, and a daffy husband behind the camera.
Maybe the most obvious touchstone is Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. In 2013, Early, Berlant, and Cole Escola recreated the movie’s dance rehearsal scene shot by shot––one of the first times Early committed to the bit and went full drag in order to replicate Elizabeth Berkeley’s profound (and profoundly ludicrous) intensity. The writer-director attempts to re-live that moment halfway through Maddie’s Secret, when Maddie joins Dina’s intense dance class and struggles to maintain the necessary strength and coordination in the midst of her eating disorder. It’s a pitch-perfect rendition in Early’s own image, but it’s Berlant that keeps these kinds of moments on the tracks, straddling the cavernous ravine between legitimate concern and winking histrionics.
As Maddie descends further into her sickness and eventually attends an inpatient rehab facility, the movie tilts carefully on its axis. It’s no longer committed to full-on parody so much as the genre’s absurd flourishes, building a real drama and introducing a variety of hospital patients (including Vanessa Bayer) to further build out the reality of Maddie’s situation. It’s not an easy play, but Early manages to keep his juggling act intact. At a certain point in his depiction, you stop seeing him as an actor with a wig and spinning clubs, but just a girl who loves food and has an honest dream. This, on its own, is a crowning achievement.
Maddie’s Secret premiered at TIFF 2025.
The post TIFF Review: Maddie’s Secret Showcases John Early’s Total Commitment first appeared on The Film Stage.