Maddie’s Secret

Purging the Past as an Aid to the Present

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

   Maddie's Secret (John Early)  Not Rated  100 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 This film’s about Maddie Ralph (Early playing this woman [I don’t know why]), a dishwasher in a trendy L.A. restaurant, Gourmaybe, with dreams of being a chef which start to come true when supportive husband Jake (Eric Rahill) shoots a video of her preparing a Philippine vegetarian dish that goes viral; soon she’s the eatery’s video face replacing huffy, snotty Emily (Claudia O’Doherty) who secretly makes fun of Maddie with their boss, Zack (Conner O’Malley), that Maddie overhears resurrecting childhood traumas she’s tried to put aside.  More tension comes when producers of the food-based TV show, The Boar, want to hire either her or Emily, setting them in competition.  Ultimately, it’s all too much for Maddie who reverts to her problem with bulimia, confiding only in her co-worker friend, Deena Michaels (Kate Berlant [on the left above]), lying to Jake that she vomits due to pregnancy.  When she collapses from cardiac arrest in an exercise class she’s admitted to a 6-week food-problem program at a local hospital, but Deena helps her escape so she can audition for The Boar folks which results in another medical episode landing her back in the hospital.  That’s all the time and space for me in this posting for plot details, but you can find plenty more at this site (with Spoilers of course).   This is a very different rendering of a story about a person with talent/drive to be happily successful, yet is held back by a severe emotional/physical situation (initiated by useless-parent Beverly Ralph [Kristen Johnston] when Maddie was just a young girl being harassed by schoolmates due to her plus-size) that’s not treated for comic effect as much of the rest of the story is (although whether there’s supposed to anything funny about notably-male Early in drag is something that eludes me; at least he plays Maddie as a decent, sympathetic character, not some kind of transvestite joke).  Your interest might be further enhanced by a tasteful sex scene early on between Maddie and muscular Jake, as well as some tasty shots of Maddie’s yummy food, but overall it’s mostly a series of unpredictable events tied together nicely at resolution.

 Maddie’s Secret was released in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on June 19, 2026, still seems to be in some of them, has so far made $1.2 million (apparently no international showings yet), can now be found on streaming where it rents for $4.99 on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV.  Despite some dismissals (example coming up soon) the CCAL’s quite strong on it with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 85%, the Metacritic average score at 74%, which is higher than they’ve been lately on things both they and I have reviewed.  Here’s testimony from someone who liked it even more than I did, Natalia Winkelman of The New York Times (MC 100): “[…] an audaciously sunny psychological drama that is also a perfectly calibrated comedy. [...] the movie has proved weirdly difficult to characterize, variously called a satire, a homage, a critique, even a horror film. Most simply, it is a pastiche of the made-for-TV melodrama, a moribund style jolted back to life with waxy visual polish and a liberal infusion of clever gags.”  However, I’ll always try to find an objecting voice for you, so I’ve gone to the other extreme with a guy from my old Texas hometown, Richard Whittaker of The Austin Chronicle, who wants his 100 min. back: “The very idea of making a spoof of 1980s movies-of-the-week is so incredibly misguided that it’s not even punching down. It’s punching at empty air, and yet that’s exactly what writer/director/star John Early does in Maddie’s Secret. […] Instead of his seeming intention to create something that’s both funny and yet very demure, very mindful, he’s churned out a barely-congealed dish that’s the thinnest of gruel.”  So, Mr. Whittaker and I reside on different planets regarding this quirky film.  With that, I’ll leave you with a Musical Metaphor, Paul Simon’s "Slip Slidin' Away" (1977 Greatest Hits, etc. album), which I pondered for a long time before choosing, mainly based on the lines “ ‘A bad day’s when I lie in bed / And think of things that might have been,’ ” a statement that seems to fit Maddie’s problems as well.  However, I think the song as a whole also fits her deteriorating situation, as it does for many of us.

 (In this photo Pat on left, Ken on eight,)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys "wisdom" in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,

              

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