Written and directed by Early, Maddie’s Secret strikes a careful tone between these melodramatic twists and its comedic moments. Some sequences feel silly and bubbly, like the cute moments between Maddie and her ride or die (and sometimes too intensely dedicated) friend Deena as they get over a fight and spray each other down with sink hoses. Other scenes take a deeply serious turn, as Maddie survives near-fatal incidents after a history of untreated bulimia and weathers a tortured relationship with her mother (a pitch-perfect Kristen Johnston), who criticizes her weight and is the root of Maddie’s troubled relationship with food. Like But I’m A Cheerleader, the filmmakers are in on the joke, taking the movie into hyperbolic territory in order to broach a more serious issue. Twisting Maddie’s Secret from dramatic, color-rich lighting and deep obsession into a message movie only works because Early wins the audience over so thoroughly as Maddie.
After a long string of mostly supporting roles across film and TV, Early shows considerable range as both filmmaker and star of Maddie’s Secret. He plays the heroine with the utmost dedication—from her goody two-shoes side, when she’s reluctant to even say a curse word, to her most insecure form, crumbling from her mom’s reprehensible treatment. Unlike Tootsie or Mrs. Doubtfire, where a male protagonist takes up drag to explore the difficulties facing women, Early doesn’t make crossdressing part of the story. Maddie is just Maddie, and the character is played as a woman, complete with a possible pregnancy subplot and a condition that mostly affects women.
To match Maddie’s complexity, Early adds in other supporting characters to explore different female friendships and rivalries, like the doomed fitness addict Julie (Vanessa Bayer) who becomes a cautionary example of what will happen to Maddie if she doesn’t face her problems, Emily’s defensive mean girl who takes every opportunity to tear Maddie down, and the young women at the eating disorder clinic who form their own clique and initially reject Maddie until she breaks the rules. Maddie’s closest friend, Deena––who does little to hide her jealous crush on Maddie––also makes for a complicated character, one whose short temper and pettiness causes problems for the two, but who shows up for Maddie and listens to her problems in a way that Maddie’s boyfriend Jake––who has his own desires that he projects onto her––can’t understand. Deena also brings Maddie to a queer fitness studio where she can be herself and learn to feel better in her body, throwing off Emily and her own mother’s mean comments. But as the pressure at work starts to affect Maddie, even the dance class becomes another place that overwhelms her.
The beauty of Maddie’s Secret is its ability to hold all of this at once. It finds levity in the absurdity of the competition for clicks and the expectation to look a certain way, but it also finds space for the real emotions that come from not fitting in and wanting to please people beyond one’s own needs. Early and cinematographer Max Lakner create a colorful world for Maddie that’s steeped in movies like All That Heaven Allows and Magnificent Obsession just as much as Early’s writing is rooted in the cautionary tales of made-for-TV parables. To drive those cross-generational references home, composer Michael A. Hesslein uses intentionally cheesy instruments for the upbeat score that accompanies Maddie’s can-do attitude, adding to the tongue-in-cheek feeling while avoiding the big orchestral swells expected with melodrama. Early plays with all these different affectations—from his performance to his behind-the-camera work—to create a unique dish of his own.
Director: John Early
Writer: John Early
Starring: John Early, Kate Berlant, Conner O’Malley, Eric Rahill, Kristen Johnston, Claudia O’Doherty, Vanessa Bayer, Chris Bauer
Release Date: June 19, 2026
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