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You can’t help but feel the ache in every moment of My Mom Jayne (now streaming on HBO Max). The documentary finds Law and Order star Marsika Hargitay exploring the life of her very famous mother, Jayne Mansfield, and all the secrets and tragedies therein. Once labeled the “smartest dumb blonde” in Hollywood, Mansfield was an ultra-famous sex symbol, pin-up girl and movie star who died in a car accident in 1967 while three of her children were in the backseat; the kids survived, the then three-year-old Hargitay among them. Now, Hargitay sifts through the details of her mom’s life, flattering or otherwise, in a sort of quest for truth and identity, and the results are quite moving for the audience – and, one hopes, cathartic for her.

The Gist: The doc opens with an old TV clip in which Jayne brings her children and myriad chihuahuas on a talk show – and little three-year-old Maria steals the show by, you know, saying the damnedest things. Mariska doesn’t remember doing that, or exactly why her mother used to call her “Maria.” In fact, she has almost no memories of her mother, and she wonders if she just made up the vague recollections she does have “because I wished it happened.” Mariska sadly pages through the many empty pages of her baby book. Wonders why there are so few pictures of her mother being affectionate with little Mariska. Eyes all the tell-all biographies about her mother, but sticks with her father Mickey Hargitay’s insistence that she never read them. She thumbs through the memories and artifacts that Jayne’s many fans and associates sent Mariska over the years. For decades, there was an empty spot inside Mariska where her mother should be, and now she seeks to fill it as truthfully and honestly as she can.

Mariska sits down with her siblings – Zoltan, Jayne Marie, Mickey Jr. – and asks them to share memories of their mother. Some are reluctant. Some remember the details of the fatal car crash. All are moved to tears during this process. Mariska cracks open a storage space full of her mother’s stuff, which hasn’t been touched in decades. She interviews Jayne’s former press agent, Rusty Strait, now 99 years old. She follows leads, pulls on threads, never shies away from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. 

And through Mariska’s detective-like work we get the best, most intimate sense of who Jayne Mansfield truly was. No surprise, the blonde bombshell who modeled herself after Marilyn Monroe and became famous for her purring little-girl voice and robust figure was a complicated individual. Who isn’t? Most of us don’t face the scrutiny of ultra-celebrity like she did, though – and most of us live long enough to reflect on the choices we made when we’re young. She actively courted publicity and kept every news clipping in massive scrapbooks, which are still intact. She allowed the press into her iconic Beverly Hills home with the heart-shaped swimming pool. She dropped Mickey, a sweet man who was Mr. Universe, for abusive brutes. She cultivated her pin-up persona, then tried to show the world she wasn’t a ditz by displaying her musical prowess and the many languages she spoke. We watch a clip of her being interviewed by Jack Paar, and when she begins playing the violin, he quips, “Who cares. Kiss me.” For many, Jayne Mansfield never became more than that. But Mariska needs her mother to be much more than that – for herself and, to a degree, the rest of the world, too.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: There are a few uncanny parallels between Hargitay’s story and the biographical fodder Sarah Polley explored in the doc Stories We Tell. And Charlotte Gainsbourg explored similar territory in the doc about her mother, Jane Birkin, Jane by Charlotte.

Performance Worth Watching: Mariska and her siblings will inevitably move you to tears. You’ve been warned.

Memorable Dialogue: Mariska’s conclusion is profoundly simple and moving: “She feels so alive now to me in such a beautiful way.”

Sex and Skin: Brief glimpses of Jayne in various states of undress.

Our Take: My Mom Jayne is as intimate as the title suggests, and then some. And Mariska, as both filmmaker and key figure in the story, allows us access to the raw emotions and thorny soap operatics that are essential to Jayne. The film never feels like a TMI open-diary airing of scandal or navel-gazing self-pity, but an honest pursuit of the truth, no matter where it leads. Mariska’s bravery and openness are such that the doc trumps any notion of self-indulgence and becomes much more than just warts-and-all biography; it’s an analysis of the complexities of fame and the cruel nature of show business, and gets down to the bare bones of the human condition, the contradictions and inconsistencies we all have. Jayne Mansfield may have been an extraordinary woman, but she was ultimately as happy and as troubled as most of us – albeit to greater extremes, as fostered by a highly scrutinized Hollywood career. 

Recent years have seen multiple documentaries offering enlightened reassessments of female celebrities who were exploited for their looks and/or public struggles, Monica Lewinsky, Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears among them. Mariska shows a fearlessness and vulnerability that one is tempted to call near-superhuman – as well as a strong sense for the technical and journalistic underpinnings of a potent documentary. In one particularly compelling scene, she takes Strait to task for his 1992 tell-all book, in which he shared intimate details about Jayne. Mariska grills him for telling stories that aren’t his to share, then turns it into a moment of poignant introspection: “Something I’ve also realized is that sometimes keeping a secret doesn’t honor anyone.” And that’s a big piece of her thesis statement in My Mom Jayne – keeping secrets only further props up the public perception of her mother being a shallow, fame-obsessed woman, and upends the popular idea that the truth is often ugly. In fact, it can be beautiful in all its complexities, joys and sadnesses. And in this new light, Jayne Mansfield has never been so beautiful.

Our Call: My Mom Jayne may be the most fascinating reclamation-of-narrative doc yet. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.