I Watched Mariska Hargitay’s Documentary About Her Mom ASAP After All The Hype, And I Wasn’t Expecting The Ending To Make Me Cry

Mariska Hargitay is a television icon after more than two decades leading Law & Order: SVU, but she’s making headlines over SVU’s summer hiatus in the 2025 TV schedule due to her new documentary, My Mom Jayne. Released on HBO and available streaming now with an HBO Max subscription, the documentary about Hargitay’s late mother not only dug deep into the real story behind the Hollywood star’s life and tragic death, but also followed Hargitay herself coming to terms with difficult elements of her family history.

I was always planning to watch the documentary, since I knew almost nothing about Jayne Mansfield, have only ever heard great things about Mariska Hargitay as a person from co-stars, and just generally enjoy a good doc. Hargitay directed and produced the project herself. But seeing hype on social media and positive review after positive review, I decided to prioritize watching it. I couldn’t be happier that I did, but I wasn’t expecting the end to make me cry.

My Mom Jayne, A Film By Mariska Hargitay

I won’t get too heavily into spoilers here, because the documentary really deserves to be experienced rather than just read about in summary, but I will say that the story of Jayne Mansfield packs an emotional punch even if you’re not at all familiar with her history as a Hollywood icon with a reputation for playing “dumb blonde” roles.

Mansfield died at the age of just 34, when Mariska Hargitay was just three years old. The SVU actress candidly speaks about why she avoided digging into her mother’s history for so much of her life, and there were extremely personal points in the documentary that I was honestly impressed that she and her siblings remained on camera. Interviewees included all of Hargitay’s siblings, her stepmother, and her mother’s press secretary, among others.

There’s plenty of footage of Jayne Mansfield from the ‘50s and ‘60s, cut together in a way that, when combined with stories from some of the people who knew her best, told a story that was profoundly sad at times. I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t sequences in the middle of the documentary that had me shedding my first tears.

The finished product also provides further context to Mariska Hargitay's big reveal to Vanity Fair earlier this year that Mickey Hargitay was not her biological father, and fleshes out Jayne Mansfield’s story by devoting solid amounts of time to telling the stories of the people around her.

Suffice it to say that I 100% understand why I was seeing so much hype around My Mom Jayne, and my question of whether I’d be invested when I didn’t know anything about Jayne Mansfield was certainly answered. It was the story of Mansfield’s hopes, dreams, and undervalued talents that had me tearing up before the end of the film.

But the cathartic end was what really got me.

Why My Mom Jayne’s Ending Was So Powerful

Here’s where I will get deeper into specific spoilers, because it’s impossible to really explain why the end was impactful without details. Not only did Mariska Hargitay devote a solid amount of time to her father, Mickey Hargitay, and her biological father, but she took the time to acknowledge how important her stepmother was to her. Yes, there was that profound sadness from so much of Jayne Mansfield’s story, but joy in seeing her family as it is today.

And two back-to-back sequences really guaranteed that my ending tears were actually happy from the catharsis of how the story was told rather than just sad for Mansfield's untapped potential in the industry and life ended too soon. Mariska Hargitay was joined by siblings Jayne Marie Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay Jr., and Zoltan Hargitay in exploring a storage unit filled with memories and belongings of their mother.

In one of few funny moments from the documentary, the siblings discovered a very old trophy in one of the boxes and Mariska Hargitay immediately identified it as a Golden Globe. Understandably so! The actress, of course, won a Golden Globe of her own for playing Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU back in 2005, and her brother immediately suggested that she put their mom’s 1956 “International Stardom Award” with her “Best Actress in a TV Series – Drama” award.

But the kicker came at the very end courtesy of Mariska Hargitay’s husband, Peter Hermann, to pay off on her ongoing effort to get her mother’s beautiful Steinway & Sons grand piano back. The piano had one-of-a-kind painting on it, but the instrument had belonged to another family for decades.

Hermann had found and gotten the piano for Hargitay for her 60th birthday, with footage showing the instant she learned that the piano was finally theirs and a sweet moment with the whole family embracing. (In a bonus sweet note, Hargitay and her daughter were wearing matching Taylor Swift Eras Tour sweatshirts after the actress had spoken about their shared appreciation for the artist.)

Did my happy tears temporarily stall out of nerves when that beautiful grand piano was being hoisted several stories up into the air on a rainy day? Yes! Was it the perfect lead-in to Hargitay’s closing monologue about getting to know her mom during the making of the documentary? Also yes.

All of this is to say that I can’t recommend My Mom Jayne highly enough for anybody who enjoys documentaries, especially as somebody who knew Mariska Hargitay’s work just from Law & Order: SVU and nothing about Jayne Mansfield before tuning in. It remains to be seen if she’ll be inspired to work on more documentary feature films in the future, since this was such a personal project, but Hargitay has branched out from performing in the past by directing episodes of SVU, all of which are available with a Peacock subscription now. Check out the trailer below:

You can check out My Mom Jayne for yourself streaming now on Max, in case you missed the broadcast on June 27. Even if you’ve somewhat spoiled yourself on the doc by reading this far, there’s plenty that I didn’t reveal. In fact, even if this had been a play-by-play of the nearly two-hour production in minute detail, it would be worth watching for the public and personal archive footage of Jayne Mansfield.