TIFF: ‘Maddie’s Secret’ Is That It’s a Horror Movie

Comedian John Early’s directorial debut Maddie’s Secret is not a straightforward cautionary tale about bulimia. While it doesn’t necessarily trivialize the eating disorder or its harmfulness, Early is less concerned with bulimia than in its historic depictions onscreen — chiefly in hokey, made-for-TV movies from the ’90s, whose campiness, clunky dialogue, and melodrama he parodies. Maddie, played by Early without winking, has a disordered relationship with food that’s all the more tortured because of her job. She works as an on-camera host and recipe developer for an online food media brand called “Gourmaybe,” a Bon Appétit -clone. In this world of online content, food is aggressively styled to look as tempting as possible, to appeal to viewers who gratify themselves by watching a pers