My Mom Jayne, Mariska Hargitay’s documentary about her late mom Jayne Mansfield, which dropped on HBO on June 27, became the talk of the town in recent days as people caught up with it over the July 4 weekend. And Hargitay’s film directorial debut is likely to remain a topic of conversation over the coming months because, The Hollywood Reporter can report, it received an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run the week before it hit cable — quietly screening at the Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood from June 20-26, and thereby meeting the Academy’s documentary feature Oscar eligibility requirement of a one-week run in at least one of several major cities — and Hargitay and Co. are committed to giving it a real grassroots push this awards season.
The Academy’s 693-member documentary branch, which solely determines the best documentary feature Oscar shortlist and nominees, has, in recent years, demonstrated an aversion to films by and/or about celebrities. Indeed, it infamously declined to even shortlist well-received docs about Robert Downey Sr. (Sr.), Anthony Bourdain (Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain), Val Kilmer (Val), Alexander McQueen (McQueen), Quincy Jones (Quincy) and Aretha Franklin (Amazing Grace), and opted to shortlist but not nominate widely-admired docs about Fred Rogers (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?), Roger Ebert (Life Itself), Billie Eilish (Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry), Jon Batiste (American Symphony), Michael J. Fox (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie), Jane Goodall (Jane) and David Bowie (Moonage Daydream).
However, a strong argument can and will be made that My Mom Jayne is not, in fact, just another “celeb doc,” but rather something more akin to Sarah Polley’s acclaimed 2012 doc directorial debut Stories We Tell, in which the filmmaker methodically revealed secrets that she had been keeping about her family. (That film was ultimately Oscar-shortlisted.)
Indeed, Hargitay’s film — which had its world premiere at May’s Cannes Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at June’s Tribeca Festival, and is currently at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with the New York Times hailing it as “an exceptional family tale” — chronicles not only Mansfield’s brief but colorful life and career, but also the way that her 1967 death in a car crash impacted Mansfield’s children, three of whom — including Hargitay — were also in the vehicle at the time but survived.
In the film, Hargitay, who was just three years old at the time of the accident, movingly discusses how she spent the nearly 60 years since then juggling grief, resentment and secrets — including a big secret about herself that she shares publicly for the first time late in the film — before finding healing through the process of making My Mom Jayne.
Hargitay told me on Tuesday, “The messages I have received both directly and through social media since we released My Mom Jayne have been extraordinary. It has been beautiful to see how the story has not only resonated with people, but how many have been moved to engage with their own families’ stories in a new way. I am excited to keep sharing this film and deeply grateful that so many have joined me in remembering — and discovering — my mom in this way.”
HBO, in a statement to THR, added, “We’re incredibly proud of the film and heartened by the extraordinary audience reception. We continue efforts to raise awareness for this remarkable film.”
A fun fact to keep in mind this awards season: both Mansfield and Hargitay were awarded Golden Globes — Mansfield won most promising newcomer in 1957 for The Girl Can’t Help It and Hargitay won best actress in a TV drama in 2005 for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — but Mansfield never received an Oscar nomination. Rather poetically, this film about her could bring Hargitay one.
