THE STORY – Explores the life and legacy of Mariska Hargitay’s mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield, who died tragically in a car accident at age 34 when Mariska was only three years old.
THE CAST – Jayne Mansfield
THE TEAM – Mariska Hargitay (Director)
THE RUNNING TIME – 106 Minutes
The “nepo baby” conversation is a fascinating one and – like most discussions on the Internet – often lacks nuance and context. Exactly how much resentment are we expected to direct at people following in their parents’ career footsteps? As with any other profession, having a famous parent or relative generally gives people a leg-up in Hollywood, but talent is what truly leads to a long-term career. Mariska Hargitay is one of showbiz’s alpha nepo babies. Her fame and success have undeniably flourished because of her own abilities; she’s been playing as Olivia Benson on the hit TV show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” for over a quarter of a century, winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance. Her achievements and the scope of her fame are so impressive that many of her fans may not even know that she’s a child of a Hollywood legend. In her film directorial debut, “My Mom Jayne,” Hargitay documents the life, success, and tragic death of her mother, actress Jayne Mansfield.
It may seem like an obvious move for Hargitay to delve into her late mother’s story through a public-facing documentary. But what keeps “My Mom Jayne” from feeling like just another celebrity bio-doc is Hargitay’s ultra-unique approach. Specifically, since she was only three years old when the infamous fatal car accident that took her mother’s life occurred, she has no memory of her mother, meaning she has just as much firsthand history with Jayne Mansfield as any viewer. In fact, Hargitay makes it clear that she once avoided the memory of her mother, resenting and rejecting the “dumb blonde” persona that Mansfield adopted for the cameras. As such, Hargitay shows us her journey of reconciling her own one-sided relationship with her mother.
But of course, her unparalleled access to her mother’s legacy – both the physical materials left behind and the emotional impression on her children – makes this about as in-depth a look at Mansfield as can possibly be imagined. She interviews her many siblings, some of whom have different fathers than she does. Her older siblings offer valuable testimony on what Jayne was like as a mother, which serves to simultaneously give the audience a look into Mansfield as a person and provide Hargitay with additional insight into her own mom. Because of Hargitay’s personalized approach, where she both provides her own context and learns about her mother on-camera, the audience feels as if they’re delving into Jayne Mansfield’s life hand-in-hand with Hargitay. It’s an impressive feat of documentarian perspective and helps set this film apart from others of its kind.
One of the more unfortunate parts of Mansfield’s legacy is that her tragic death has become as much a part of her story as her career that burned fast and bright in Hollywood. Hargitay doesn’t shy away from delving into the car accident that took Mansfield’s life and two others, nor does she go into exploitive detail. Instead, she interviews her two older brothers, who were in the car with young Mariska. These one-on-one conversations filmed for the camera are extremely moving, especially because they talk about the astounding fact that three-year-old Mariska was nearly left behind at the scene of the accident. It’s hard to imagine an interviewer who isn’t related to these men being able to pry such details and emotion from them.
“My Mom Jayne” uses lots of photos and home video footage to help illustrate Mansfield’s story, which would very likely not have been possible if Hargitay herself weren’t behind this film’s creation. Some of these photos are even discovered on-camera, including ones that Jayne chopped up in order to remove former husbands from the literal picture. Hargitay spends just as much time paying reverence to her mother’s on-screen persona as she does exploring her off-screen hobbies and abilities. Notably, Jayne was a violinist and pianist, and the film shows her performing on late-night TV shows (one particularly hard-to-watch appearance on host Jack Paar’s program shows just how dismissed her talents were by lascivious men). At times, the onslaught of information and primary sources can be a bit overwhelming, as if Hargitay is afraid to leave anything out. But it’s hard to begrudge this documentary feeling overstuffed when it has someone so close to the subject behind the camera. Hargitay has constructed a documentary that examines her mother’s legacy in a way that’s respectful, revelatory, and unvarnished. Jayne would be proud.
