Two women, two myths, two deeply personal documentaries — but above all, two love letters from children to their mothers. Rita Lee: Mania de Você and My Mom, Jayne are not just biographical portraits. They are intimate, emotional, and courageous gestures from children who, faced with the mythical figures of their mothers — public, idolized, misunderstood — attempt to find the woman behind the legend. And in that process, to understand them, honor them, and perhaps reconcile with what was lived — and what was not.

Both João, Beto, and Antonio Lee, and Mariska Hargitay come from different places but share the same impulse: to reconstruct their mothers from memories, fragments, silences, and affection. The difference is that Rita’s children lived alongside their mother for decades — witnessing her brilliance, her ups and downs, her loves and reclusive moments — while Mariska lost Jayne Mansfield at the age of three, in a tragic accident she barely survived. That absence made her search even more vital: the documentary My Mom, Jayne is, in large part, an attempt to fill a void — an emotional investigation carried out with heart in hand.

Rita Lee: Mania de Você, released by Max on May 8, 2025 — exactly two years after the singer’s passing — is entirely shaped by the perspectives of her children, widower Roberto de Carvalho, and a few close friends. The film’s tone is organic, at times even improvised — as João Lee revealed, the recordings were made just three weeks before his mother’s passing. The emotion was inevitable. There’s one particularly moving scene in which the three siblings read a letter from Rita on camera. Two of them had never read the letter before. What we see is raw, genuine, and unfiltered.

The focus of the documentary is on Rita as a mother and a woman. It includes moments about her addictions, her battle with cancer, and her periods of isolation. Musically, the film concentrates on her pop and romantic phase, beginning with her union with Roberto and her success with Tutti Frutti. The near-total absence of her time with Os Mutantes — the band that launched her to stardom in the 1960s — leaves a noticeable gap. Reportedly, the use of footage was blocked by Sérgio Dias, but the subject could have been addressed in other ways. For longtime fans and for the history of Brazilian rock, that absence is felt.

The film leans more toward emotion than criticism. Testimonials from figures like Gilberto Gil and Ney Matogrosso come off as somewhat standard, and the documentary avoids diving deeper into Rita’s complexity — a woman who, in life, was always more honest, more biting, and more fearless than any script could ever fully capture. Those who’ve read her autobiographies may feel something is missing. Still, Mania de Você is sincere in its intention: it’s a tender, moving farewell from those who truly loved her.

My Mom, Jayne, from HBO, starts from a place of absence. Mariska Hargitay barely had a chance to know Jayne Mansfield. She was in the car that took her mother’s life, surviving as a baby trapped under the seat. Raised by her adoptive father, Mickey Hargitay, and stepmother, she had a happy childhood — but one filled with gaps and silence surrounding the woman who sparked so much fascination and mystery. Over time, she discovered that Mickey wasn’t her biological father — a painful revelation that further fueled her need to understand who her mother really was.

The film moves in spirals: letters, photos, old recordings, conversations with siblings, and — in a cathartic moment — a meeting with her biological father, artist Nelson Sardelli. This encounter becomes the emotional high point of the documentary. Jayne Mansfield, forever compared to Marilyn Monroe, was often seen as a caricature, a product of the desire-driven media industry. But Mariska reveals other sides of Jayne: the loving mother, the brilliant woman, the frustrated actress who longed to be taken seriously. Jayne was far more than the baby-voiced blonde her children once found strange. She was vulnerable, ambitious, and wounded.

DocMariska doesn’t try to sanctify Jayne. On the contrary, she exposes the contradictions, acknowledges the flaws, and processes the pain. And in the end, when she tells her mother, “I see myself in you for the first time,” she closes a cycle of searching and belonging that resonates with anyone who has ever tried to see their parents as real, flawed, human beings.

Rita Lee and Jayne Mansfield lived very different lives, but both, in their own ways, were women who defied norms, created their own worlds, and paid a price for it. Their children — now adults, artists, and heirs not only of their names but also of their pain and legacy — chose to tell their stories with open hearts.

Mania de Você and My Mom, Jayne are not meant to be complete documentaries — and they don’t pretend to be. They are intimate, partial, emotional portraits. They are what children can offer when they sit before the mirror of memory: love, longing, admiration. And the courage to look back and say: “Now I truly see you, Mom.”