My Mom Jayne, Mariska Hargitay’s documentary about her late mother Jayne Mansfield, which dropped on HBO on June 27, grew to become the discuss of the city in latest days as folks caught up with it over the July 4 weekend. And Hargitay’s movie directorial debut is prone to stay a subject of dialog over the approaching months as a result of, The Hollywood Reporter can report, it obtained an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run the week earlier than it hit cable — quietly screening on the Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood from June 20-26, and thereby assembly the Academy’s documentary function Oscar eligibility requirement of a one-week run in at the least considered one of a number of main cities — and Hargitay and Co. are dedicated to giving it an actual grassroots push this awards season.
The Academy’s 693-member documentary department, which solely determines the perfect documentary function Oscar shortlist and nominees, has, in recent times, demonstrated an aversion to movies by and/or about celebrities. Certainly, it infamously declined to even shortlist well-received docs about Robert Downey Sr. (Sr.), Anthony Bourdain (Roadrunner: A Movie About Anthony Bourdain), Val Kilmer (Val), Alexander McQueen (McQueen), Quincy Jones (Quincy) and Aretha Franklin (Superb Grace), and opted to shortlist however not nominate extensively admired docs about Fred Rogers (Received’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 (Nonetheless: A Michael J. Fox Film), Jane Goodall (Jane) and David Bowie (Moonage Daydream).
Nonetheless, a robust argument can and can be made that My Mother Jayne isn’t, in truth, simply one other “celeb doc,” however quite one thing extra akin to Sarah Polley’s acclaimed 2012 doc directorial debut Tales We Inform, by which the filmmaker methodically revealed secrets and techniques that she had been maintaining about her household. (That movie was in the end Oscar-shortlisted.)
Certainly, Hargitay’s movie — which had its world premiere at Might’s Cannes Movie Competition and its U.S. premiere at June’s Tribeca Competition, and is currently at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with the New York Instances hailing it as “an distinctive household story” — chronicles not solely Mansfield’s transient however colourful life and profession, but additionally the best way that her 1967 dying in a automotive crash impacted Mansfield’s kids, three of whom — together with Hargitay — had been additionally within the automobile on the time however survived.
Within the movie, Hargitay, who was simply 3 years previous on the time of the accident, movingly discusses how she spent the almost 60 years since then juggling grief, resentment and secrets and techniques — together with an enormous secret about herself that she shares publicly for the primary time late within the movie — earlier than discovering therapeutic by way of the method of constructing My Mother Jayne.
Hargitay advised me on Tuesday, “The messages I’ve obtained each instantly and thru social media since we launched My Mother Jayne have been extraordinary. It has been lovely to see how the story has not solely resonated with folks, however what number of have been moved to have interaction with their very own households’ tales in a brand new method. I’m excited to maintain sharing this movie and deeply grateful that so many have joined me in remembering — and discovering — my mother on this method.”
HBO, in an announcement to THR, added, “We’re extremely pleased with the movie and heartened by the extraordinary viewers reception. We proceed efforts to boost consciousness for this exceptional movie.”
A enjoyable reality to bear in mind this awards season: Each Mansfield and Hargitay had been awarded Golden Globes — Mansfield received most promising newcomer in 1957 for The Woman Can’t Assist It and Hargitay received finest actress in a TV drama in 2005 for Legislation & Order: Particular Victims Unit — however Mansfield by no means obtained an Oscar nomination. Relatively poetically, this movie about her might deliver Hargitay one.