Sometimes a movie's conception of a character can be so spot-on — so gloriously accurate and emotionally true — it can carry you beyond mere plot and deliver you to a place of pure recognition: I know her. So it is with Maddie, an extremely online Los Angeles striver, blond tendrils of hair hanging in her face along with the need, deep in her eyes, to become a food influencer. You can hear it in the way she pronounces tortang talong or yuzu kosho crisp. This is a person who squeals when unboxing her favorite condiments (Fly by Jing, if you must know).

It doesn't matter that Maddie is played by a man — or rather, it matters entirely when that man is John Early, the unfairly gifted comedian, TV star and off-Broadway actor who also wrote and directed "Maddie's Secret," his first feature. Early loves his creation, enough to spin an entire psychodrama around her, one that will bring her high and low.

But the best compliment I can pay Early is that, while you never quite unsee his jawline and strategic padding, his total commitment is such that it swings you over. Divine did this, immortally, in John Waters' films. You're watching something that can't be achieved solely by realism. Don't call it drag (Early doesn't) — it's more like channeling, bringing a desperate creature to life by dint of compassion. You stop thinking about it.

Maddie jogs around her Echo Park neighborhood (these locations are sharply scouted) and reports to work at a warehouse-like content farm and test kitchen called Gourmaybe, where she dreams of being elevated from lowly dishwasher to recipe deviser or maybe even on-camera talent. The boss is a lech but, for diversion, she's got her bestie, Deena (Kate Berlant, Early's frequent partner in passive-aggressive skit brilliance), who props up her aspirations and not so secretly pines for her. Letting off steam, they spray each other with sink hoses in a scene of such silly abandon, you may miss Early's savvy in making everything heightened, so Maddie can seem like the most real thing on screen.

Wonderfully and terribly, everything does happen for Maddie after her adoring bear of a husband, Jake (Eric Rahill), makes a cooking video of her that goes massively viral. Suddenly there's interest from a yes-chef-centric prestige drama called "The Boar," as well as the return of an old eating disorder that has our heroine sneaking off to the bathroom, in danger of toppling everything.

"Maddie's Secret" isn't much of a secret, not if you remember those made-for-TV malady movies that turned subjects like bulimia into hypnotic melodramas. (In Early's case, it's an admitted affection for "Kate's Secret," a housewife tragedy that aired on NBC in the fall of 1986.) The deeper mystery, one I'd still like explained, is how Early found the time to learn how to mimic Douglas Sirk's sneaky sincerity, the trickiest of directorial tones. His film contains gestures that trigger ironic laughs — he's no dummy — but then leave you with a sting you may be embarrassed to admit.

The movie that Early's impressive debut most brings to mind, in its own modest way, is Todd Haynes' ominous 1995 medical mystery "Safe," itself a spin on disease-of-the-week TV trash but elevated into high art. Haynes, coupled with a fearless Julianne Moore, took down '80s AIDS-era apathy and vapid Valley lifestyles. Early also has a larger target in view, the fickleness of internet celebrity, a lure that often comes with self-harm. For a while, his ambition marks the film as a rare debut of substance.

You pray for Early's initial poise to last him through the endgame that Maddie sorely needs: a rehab clinic. Alas, it's where the movie takes on empty calories, bulking up with a host of crazy-coded fellow patients that she makes friends with, along with the unwelcome emergence of a louche parent (Kristen Johnston) who seems too readily the reason for Maddie's issues.

But when we're just focused on Early, hoping to outrun Maddie's demons in manic aerobics sessions of deliriously complex choreography, the movie feels like a spell. All of the things that make him an unlikely ingénue — the flop sweat, the slight chunkiness, the desire to pass for a cute foodie — click into place. She couldn't be more perfect.

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'MADDIE'S SECRET'

No MPA rating

Running time: 1:38

How to watch: Now in limited theatrical release

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