My Mom Jayne (2025) review

Hargitay, who was only three years old when her actress mother Jayne Mansfield was killed in an automobile accident in New Orleans (Mariska was in the backseat of the car), brings together her entire family (including her step-mom, brothers and sisters) to talk about the real Jayne - an ambitious and bright woman from Pennsylvania who experienced a traumatic childhood - and, in the process, learns of her "true" identity (welcome to Team Italy, paisan).  She makes very good points regarding the way in which Hollywood typecast her mom as a "dumb blonde" - a stereotype Jayne herself played into - and resisted accepting her as the intelligent and thoughtful person she was (she supposedly had a high IQ, could play both the violin and piano and spoke multiple languages), although it's mainly an exercise in "cinematic self-therapy" (with plenty of mushiness) and filled with tacky effects that one might expect to see on an investigative television program.  With all the archival footage and newspaper clippings Hargitay is able to produce (she even finds Jayne's Golden Globe award to pair with her own) it's easy to forget her subject left this planet at the young age of 34 ... and yet she sure packed several lifetimes of drama (and affairs) in that limited period of time.