Mariska Hargitay: "My Mom Jayne"

 Mariska Hargitay is an unusual figure in American history. She is a world-famous actor, but her career is linked with just one role. Literally one role. It's a role she has played for nearly thirty years.

Many actors describe a desire to be chameleonic, to be lost in one character after another after another. But if Hargitay has that desire, she has suppressed it. It's almost like she is closer to a late-night host--like Johnny Carson--than to a Jodie Foster or a Nicole Kidman.

Then. From left field .We get this documentary.

"My Mom Jayne" beautifully follows the standard format of a memoir. Mariska has two storylines unfolding at once; there is the present-day Mariska attempting detective work, then there is the story of the past (the Hollywood glamour, the ocelot in the backyard, the car accident). Think of "Wild," with Cheryl Strayed hiking across a portion of America, in one storyline, and also living through a turbulent girlhood, in a second storyline.

The inciting event in Mariska's film seems to be a dispute over a piano. Mariska's mother--Jayne Mansfield--owned a tacky piano with cherubs on the legs. Mansfield's property eventually became the property of Engelbert Humperdinck (because of course). Though most of Mansfield's belongings are now gone, the piano still exists, and Humperdinck still exists. (He is almost 90.) Mariska wants that piano. We witness tense phone calls; we hear allusions to months of silence.

Like Proust's madeleine, the piano sends Mariska spinning; she takes a journey to the past. She has a memory of her mother, Jayne Mansfield, touching the top of her head. Could this be real? Or could it be an invention? After Jayne's sudden death, Mariska becomes a main concern of Mickey Hargitay, her father, her "rock." But Mickey's role in Jayne Mansfield's life is somewhat mysterious. He always seems to be glowing in press photos. But--in several secret family photos--he has been removed via scissor cuts. How can this be?

Although Mariska's story is impossibly starry, with input from Jack Paar, Sophia Loren, Groucho Marx, it's also just a story about a wounded adult trying to make sense of the past. In that way, it's universal. We're all detectives--in small moments.

What a gift from HBO!