Sometimes, when you think you know what to expect from a movie, it doesn’t match those expectations. What do you do then?

I’m not talking about the unmet expectations of fans, like those who complain that Kubrick’s “The Shining” made sweeping changes from Stephen King’s novel, or start a social media campaign trashing the latest “Star Wars” or “Marvel” film because of a plot twist they don’t like. Those are complaints about content, about a story not going the way it is “supposed” to go.

I’m referring to the expectations we have when we walk into a movie thinking that it’s going to have a particular tone, a specific style, a familiar formula – essentially that it is going to easily fit into a comfortable box, and stay there. What happens when it doesn’t?

That’s the question I found myself asking as I watched “Maddie’s Secret,” the directorial debut from gay actor/comedian John Early, which is now screening in a limited theatrical release. It’s the story of a humble housewife whose doting husband persuades her to turn her love of cooking into a career as a virally popular “food influencer,” only to find that her sudden success triggers traumatic feelings from her childhood; clearly a contemporized hybrid of the melodramatic “woman’s pictures” of Old Hollywood and the “Afterschool Special” style cautionary dramas of ‘70s/’80s TV, it has all the earmarks of being an exercise in “camp” – especially since Early himself stars as Maddie.

To put it plainly, it’s an over-the-top old-school melodrama combined with modern-day satire of online social media fame, with a gay man in a dress playing the lead. What could be campier than that?

And it is campy, make no mistake. Yet at the same time, somehow, it isn’t. From its opening scene (which shows us Maddie as she jogs to her dishwashing job at the headquarters of an LA test kitchen/content studio named “Gourmaybe”), we expect things to get wacky. The ingredients are definitely present for it, like her aggressively butch co-worker/BFF Deena (Kate Berlant), who is clearly nursing a serious “girl crush”; bitchy TikTok star Emily (Claudia O’Doherty), who demeans her and ridicules her ambitions of being a chef; and boss Zach (Connor O’Malley), a womanizing corporate “bro” who enthusiastically embraces all the toxic traits we associate with that description.

As the story opens up beyond her workplace, there are more elements that feel ripe for the kind of histrionic humor we might expect from a film by John Waters, or the stylish old-school parody of Charles Busch, or even the radicalized sexual transgression of Bruce La Bruce: Maddie’s adorably bearish husband Jake (Eric Rahill) could be made into a goofy caricature with a food fetish, and her estranged, abusive mother Beverlee (Kristen Johnston in a deliciously grotesque performance) is easily monstrous enough to be at the campy center of any “hag horror” from the ‘60s.

And when we finally discover her “secret” (spoiler alert: it’s an eating disorder that returns when the pressures of being a popular social media chef bring up old feelings about her relationship with food), it’s easy to imagine a different filmmaker taking the whole thing in a thoroughly savage direction; the potential for tasteless, excessive, and deliberately juvenile comedy might be limitless, in the hands of a director unafraid of being branded “offensive.”

It’s hard not to see all these possibilities on hand as we watch Early’s film – which he also wrote – and (for myself, anyway) hard not to hope they all play out to maximum outrageous effect.

They don’t. Instead, “Maggie’s Secret” does something so unexpected that it feels, at first, like a mistake: it decides to play things straight.

It’s still a comedy, make no mistake, but it’s not the kind of comedy we think it’s going to be. It doesn’t go for over-the-top anarchy; it doesn’t go for the bitch-slapping catfight between rival divas, or for the running parade of filthy double-entendres, or for the absurd “gross-out” humor that might have emerged from its scenes of binge-and-purge overeating. Well, okay, maybe it does go for that last one, a little bit.

What all this comes down to, perhaps, is that the film gets its laughs – and there are quite a lot of them – without making fun of itself or, more importantly, its characters. The comedy here is built into the story; it comes from its send-up of social media influencers, corporate content creation, media tie-ins, and all the other interlocked microcosms of our “new, now, next” digital culture; it comes from the foibles and fumbles of its characters as they pursue their objectives in the story, from the qualities and quirks of their personalities, from their simply being funny because they feel like being funny; and yes, it sometimes comes from the obvious cliches of form that we recognize, the plot formulas and sudden revelations and shocking twists that have emerged time and time again in these kinds of domestic melodramas, but it does so good-naturedly, in a way that feels like laughing “with” the movie than laughing “at” it.

It also never diminishes or ridicules the seriousness of Maddie’s eating disorder, nor the experiences that come for her when she (spoiler alert, again) ends up going into an inpatient facility to be treated for it; though these later scenes come populated with their own set of stereotypical characters, ready to be exploited, the movie may poke gentle fun, but it humanizes them, too, helping build the film toward an emotional climax that leaves us with the kind of satisfying uncertainty we don’t quite expect from a movie like this one.

Most significantly, perhaps, it never gets its laughs out of the fact that Maddie is being played by a man – and it’s this that makes Early’s film feel more profound than we expect it to be. It’s not a “drag” movie, or a cross-dressing comedy, or anything to do with Maddie’s gender at all. She is a woman, presented without exaggeration or irony, and she just happens to be portrayed by a male actor instead of a female one. There’s no joke involved, just an excellent performance.

This is an apt approach, considering that Early cites Waters’ 1974 “Female Trouble” as his inspiration for “Maddie’s Secret.” Though he sets aside the extremes of that classic in favor of nuance and kindness, he takes his cue from its star – the incomparable Divine, who never called himself a drag queen but considered himself an actor playing a part. Early does the same, and it makes his film into a kind of full-circle moment in queer “underground” cinema (if a premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where “Maddie’s Secret” screened to enthusiastic response, can be called “underground”) which pays homage to the legacy of a past icon while picking up the mantle and carrying it in a new – and unexpected – direction.

That’s the thing about expectations: sometimes they are left unfulfilled – and in answer to my own question, as I watched this uniquely winning queer indie gem, what happens just might be something wonderful.

Greg Araki may not have been solely responsible for the “New Queer Cinema” movement of the 1990s, but he certainly gave it an edge.

From early low-budget groundbreakers like “The Living End” (1992) through his “Teen Apocalypse Trilogy” (1993-97) and beyond, his films have subverted cinematic tropes with queer characters and themes and co-opted them into his own unique brand of filmic storytelling — extreme, campy, and transgressive – in which his queer characters were usually framed as sexual outlaws, flawed and anti-heroic outsiders who disregard not only sexual conventions, but often the law and the social order itself.

In subsequent decades, he’s continued to bring that same fiercely counter-cultural swagger to a surprisingly diverse array of projects, from the melancholy and critically acclaimed “Mysterious Skin” (2004) to the first-ever Cannes Queer Palm winner “Kaboom” (2010). And though it’s been 12 years since his last feature film release (“White Bird in a Blizzard”), he’s brought his twisted talents under the radar to helm episodes of popular TV shows like “13 Reasons Why,” “Riverdale,” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

Now, he’s back to the big screen with “I Want Your Sex,” a new erotic comedy-thriller that proves he hasn’t lost that edge. In fact, he may have honed it to a sharpness that cuts deeper than ever — and he’s aimed it not only at the moralistic posturing of mainstream attitudes around carnality, but at the thinly veiled high end consumerism that drives the world of avant-garde art.

Structured with a nod to “Sunset Boulevard” – it begins with a shocking “face down in a swimming pool” moment that is then explained in flashback – and flavored with the kind of sexual anarchy that rarely manages to penetrate the cultural mainstream, it’s the quintessentially “L.A.” story of Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a perennially down on his luck 23-year-old would-be podcaster who manages to land a job as an assistant to multi-media artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), known as much for her domineering personality as for her highly sexualized (and deliberately provocative) work. At first, he is just one of a small army of fellow assistants tasked with helping prepare for an exhibition of new work at her gallery, which ranges from writing emails and scheduling interviews to chewing gum for a conceptual artwork depicting her vagina; but something about him catches her eye, and he soon finds himself taking on the additional duty of being her sexual plaything. 

It’s strictly a business arrangement, of course, and all under cover of an NDA he signed before ever being hired; she needs the sexual outlet to keep her focused on her work, and he – thanks to his unsatisfying relationship with disinterested girlfriend Minerva (Charlie XCX) and his desire to finally pay his share of rent for the apartment he shares with BFF Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) – is happy to be of service. At first, it all feels like a dream come true, as he crosses his own boundaries to become enmeshed in a Dom/sub dynamic with an older woman on whom he’s long had a crush; she’s the Dom, of course, and he soon discovers he has more than just a mild taste for being submissive. But as things progress, he begins to “catch” the feelings he was never allowed to have, while Erika’s manipulation and humiliation of him starts to cross lines that threaten to undermine his tenuous sexual liberation, simultaneously eroding the comfortable relationships that have kept him feeling grounded, if perennially dIsappointed, up until now. Needless to say, things get progressively twisted, and Elliott finds himself ever more haplessly  exploited as the story winds back to that “swimming pool moment” with all the inevitability of a train wreck experienced in irresistibly delicious slow motion.

Yes, it’s all deliberately “shocking” in the sense that it takes us places – both sexually and psychosexually – that a lot of audiences might never have thought they’d be expected to go. There’s plenty of nudity, the kinky sex is “explicit” in the sense that we have no doubt about the physical logistics of what’s happening even if we don’t see it, and the overall sense of “ethics” is pretty much “who cares?” In today’s world of “purity politics,” that might actually be the most transgressive thing of all about Araki’s film.

It’s not all just thumb to the nose at 21^st century morality, however; nor is it merely a chance to undermine our faith in concepts like “consent” or suggest that inappropriate sexual dynamics in the workplace are anything other than toxic. Erika is most definitely a kind of beautiful monster – all the more because her angle, from the beginning, is all about increasing the value of her “brand” – but to frame her as a villain is missing a crucial point in what is essentially, despite its coy pretense at being a thriller, a coming-of-age story wrapped in a dark and de-romanticized rom-com.

Central to Araki’s story is the oft-cited observation that Gen Z people, having come of age in a time of social isolation in which private indiscretion can frequently lead to public shame, are afraid of sex. Elliot himself discusses this generational trope, yet he exposes himself to betrayal and humiliation anyway – and while that choice may take him down a rocky road, it also takes him on the journey of sexual self-discovery that he’s always wanted to have. Erika facilitates this, however unethically she may go about it, and even makes some discoveries about herself along the way; and despite the fact the journey ends up with police interrogations, tabloid scandal, and reversals of fortune not even she can see coming, the sex itself is never really to blame. After all, it’s only sex.

Maybe that’s the main point of “I Want Your Sex,” if there is one: all the stigma, all the prudish judgments and standards of moral “decency” become absurd in the face of the act itself, which – for most humans, at least – only comes naturally and, when stripped of unnecessary shame, can be a joyful experience, no matter how “kinky” it gets.

In fact, it’s not so much the sexual “deviance” or betrayals that Araki positions as the driving force in his movie, but the pretensions of a commercialized art world in which notoriety, controversy, and even tragedy can boost fame and fortune overnight – something that savvy artists, like Erika (and perhaps Araki himself) understand and exploit without qualm. One can make judgments about that, too, but in the end, isn’t that just part of how capitalism works?

In any case, “I Want Your Sex” doesn’t make judgments about any of it, just observations – with wit, slyness, and a refreshingly sex-positive attitude. Wilde and Hoffman deliver superb performances, as does the entire cast – which, apart from others previously mentioned, includes Mason Gooding as Elliot’s super-gay co-worker, Daveed Diggs as Erika’s haughty business manager, and Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville in admirably deadpan roles as a pair of police detectives. Shrewd, sexy, and all in good fun, it might well be the most fun you’ll have at the movies this summer.

When I wrote my review of the first season of “Heartstopper,” I said that if the series could only be summed up in one word, it would be “adorable.”

After an additional two seasons and a movie length series finale (which began streaming on Netflix July 17), I’m going to make up a new rule and say that I can choose a second word to close things out. By the time I reach the end of my review of “Heartstopper Forever,” in which our adorable Nick and Charlie must face the possibility that their tender young romance may not be able to survive their graduation to college, I hope I’ll have figured which word it would be.

Directed by Wash Westmoreland and written (as always) by Alice Oseman, artist and creator behind the YA webcomic/graphic novel that launched the whole “Heartstopper” phenomenon, this final installment finds a very different Nick and Charlie than we met in those early episodes – yet in many ways they’re still very much the same. Far from the timid and bullied queer lad of the first season, Charlie (Joe Locke) is now boldly out and confident enough to win the election for “head boy” in his final year at school, and Nick (Kit Connor) no longer struggles with being open about his bisexuality; yet as the stress of their impending separation – each to a different college in a different city – begins to become more urgent, both of them fall back on old patterns.

To those of us who have been around long enough to re-examine such a crisis with 20/20 hindsight, that’s bound to strike chords of recognition. To the younger “Heartstopper” fans, however, it’s likely to feel like high drama – exactly as it did for us when we were going through it ourselves. It’s not just Nick and Charlie, either; other characters, like transgender prodigy Elle (Yasmin Finney) and her cis-het boyfriend Tao (William Gao), must also come to terms with the changing dynamics of their relationships. The result is multiple mirrors through which queer teens can see their own experience reflected, which has always been the appeal of “Heartstopper” in the first place. And as it has from the beginning, Oseman’s intent to provide her teen audience with positive perspectives shines through, ensuring that the story’s final chapter lands in a place where hope can belong to everyone.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its share of dark moments – it wouldn’t be “Heartstopper” if it didn’t, would it? Part of the show’s value for its fans, young and old alike, has always come through its various characters’ growing pains; their missteps and misjudgments, their confused emotions, their fumbling efforts at “first times,” their struggles toward self-esteem. All these and more have provided the necessary “weight” to counter the show’s bubbly optimism and keep it from becoming as insubstantial as spun sugar. More importantly, these issues have always been the real core of the story: We love the sweetness of the romance, but the deeper satisfaction comes from watching these young people navigate all their challenges, sometimes alone but more often together, and build a community through the shared experience of working through them.

The final installment, having brought Charlie, Nick, and all the rest to the cusp of young adulthood, brings a suitably more mature level of problems into the mix. Sure, Charlie has grown into the hero he once needed himself, but the uncertainty that emerges between himself and Nick as they ponder their impending separation is enough to spark a relapse of his eating disorder; likewise, Nick may be confident and unguarded about his sexuality and openly proud of being Charlie’s boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop him from slipping back into self-doubt (and bad behavior) when he contemplates the possibility that their love story might be coming to an end. We know they have the “tools” to get back on track, but with everything so up in the air, will they be able to remember how to use them?

So, too, throughout the series, we have seen these kids come to terms with their individual queerness, navigating those personal journeys and learning how to embrace who they are in an environment where, for the most part, they get a lot of support. At the same time, there have been shadows around the edges, encounters and circumstances that remind them (and us) that, outside the protective circle provided by their school and each other, bigotry still exists. In “Heartstopper Forever,” those reminders are still there, and they feel all the more ominous – not just because of the worldwide rise in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, though that’s tied to it, but because these bright young things will soon be moving into a larger world where safety and shelter from the hate is not quite so certain.

Still, it’s Nick and Charlie’s story above all else, and naturally the main focus of this finale is on them. There has always been a too-good-to-be-true perfection to their romance, but Locke and Connor are so good at bringing it to life we believe it; here, fittingly for a final chapter, these boys finally face the crossroad that comes with adulthood – the recognition that, one way or another, there will be an ending to their relationship. How they handle that, we won’t spoil; once again, though, this is “Heartstopper,” one can feel sure that Oseman’s characters will work their way through it in the most imperfectly perfect – and emotionally satisfying – way possible.

Deserving of mention: characters like Isaac (Tobie Donovan), Imogen (Rhea Norwood), and Charlie’s sister Tori (Jenny Walser) return to get their fair share of the spotlight, and gay teachers Mr. Ajayi (Fisayo Akinade) and Mr. Farouk (Nima Taleghani) get the chance for a new beginning of their own; and out UK acting legend Derek Jacobi (“I, Claudius”) appears alongside real-life partner Richard Clifford as an elderly couple in a quiet but important scene at the cafe where Charlie works.

With any “franchise” as popular as “Heartstopper,” the task of bringing closure to a story that has emotionally involved so many fans is almost always a thankless one (just ask George Lucas), so there are sure to be some who have objections to the way Oseman brings her beloved story to an end; but it’s her story to end, and in choosing to uphold its sensational (yet sentimental) imagining of the world as it could be, “Heartstopper Forever” doubles down on the idea that we can make it the way that it should be. 

That’s why my choice for the second word we can use to sum up “Heartstopper” is “aspirational.” In the relative innocence and un-ironic preciousness of Nick and Charlie’s enduring love story, we can find no excuses; not all of us can keep our first love alive for an entire lifetime (nor, often, should we), but maybe we can learn to follow our hearts as surely and openly as they do.

That’s about as aspirational as any of us can hope to be – but don’t worry: it’s still adorable, too.