With a solid 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s safe to say the documentary My Mom Jayne is already a winner. It’s not just the RT score, of course. The score reflects how good it is, how real it feels, and what an honest, moving story it tells. The Documentary Feature branch is often obstinate when it comes to honoring popular documentaries, as this already is, but they would be fools to overlook it for that reason.
My Mom Jayne had a limited theatrical run, which I believe qualifies it for Doc Feature. It’s currently streaming on HBO Max.
Mariska Hargitay directs this deeply personal story that reveals the secrets of her past and her life, most of us don’t know. Throughout all these years that I knew Hargitay was the daughter of Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay, there was so much more I didn’t know. It’s better to watch it for yourself, without spoilers, because the surprises and the revelations are what make this film so good.
And I won’t give those away here.
It’s best to watch the movie spoiler-free, letting it unfold in the way Hargitay wishes to tell it. We get to know members of her family and more than that, we get to know Jayne herself. The real Jayne. Why she was famous, how little we knew about how smart she was, what life was like back then and why Mariska Hargitay has had to live with so many secrets, secrets she kept from the public.
Jayne Mansfield was considered a sexy pinup who followed in the footsteps of Marilyn Monroe. Her legacy has always lived on in her daughter, but oddly enough, most people say they don’t look alike. That is mostly due to Jayne Mansfield, who is more familiar to us as a platinum blonde, whereas Hargitay has always been dark-haired and dark-eyed.
But also, Hargitay hasn’t really talked much about her mom. She has made a career on her own, without relying on the name. Not many people alive today even remember Jayne Mansfield – what she looked like, how she died. My Mom, Jayne, will guarantee that people remember and, more importantly, see the fully fleshed-out human being that Mansfield was.
The meme generation probably knows her from that famous photo with Sophia Loren:
As the director and storyteller, Hargitay takes us closer to her own life without shying away from the more painful aspects of her background. That isn’t to say she had a particularly rough or painful life. By all accounts, after her mother’s violent death, she was raised by a caring, devoted father. Finding out the truth about her past and coming to terms with it, then sharing it with the world, is what My Mom Jayne is about.
Hargitay directed 9 episodes of Law and Order: SVU, so this isn’t her first time directing, but she had to do something slightly different here. She had to direct herself learning about her own life. It’s moving, never boring, and ultimately, left me a sobbing wreck. I highly recommend it for anyone, but especially those whose lives contain within them family secrets about missing mothers and biological parents – what it means to be a father, and how lucky Hargitay was to have been raised by such a good one.
Don’t miss it.
