Maddie’s Secret (2025)

I didn’t know until tonight that I was still in a headspace where I’d find myself reflexively cringing at portrayals of institutionalization. (I knew nothing about this movie ahead of time and literally joked about my week in a mental healthcare facility to my sister like 30 minutes before showtime.) I think more than the plot what I was bracing for was the teeheeing of an audience so desperate to laugh that you’d think their only exposure to melodrama beforehand was the Douglas Sirk steak bit from Pulp Fiction.

I’m okay with tonal inconsistency in a movie but it has to have a payoff. Maybe there is one somewhere deep in the hospital stuff, but I wouldn’t count myself as a beneficiary if there was. Frustrating film!  Plenty of good performances, but the writing wasn’t strong enough to be truthful or brave enough to be funny. It kept riding a line somewhere between the two, like a sober reimagining of Showgirls that’d been drained of much of its color.