Stream It or Skip It: ‘Being Mary Tyler Moore’ on HBO, an Intimate Portrait of an Enigmatic Icon

HBO’s Being Mary Tyler Moore aims to reveal, preserve, and share the legacy of one of the 20th century’s most influential entertainers — an entertainer who, during her life, was considered quite enigmatic. Was Mary Tyler Moore as upbeat as the characters she played, or did she hide a dark side? Was America’s feminist icon really a feminist? The truth, it turns out, is much more complicated.

BEING MARY TYLER MOORE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s nearly impossible to think of a performer who shaped the medium of television as much as Mary Tyler Moore. As part of the cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore helped create the blueprint for the modern television comedy — a blueprint that’s remained more or less unchanged for the past 60 years. And any add-ons to that blueprint came courtesy of her next sitcom, the groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore Show. Moore was at the forefront of television’s evolution from a box in the corner of the living room that sold you cigarettes in between blurry footage of people doing comedy bits into an actual art form, whether she was asking to wear pants on television in 1961 or embodying the independent ideals of the feminist movement in 1971.

Being Mary Tyler Moore charts this icon’s trajectory, from playing a pixie in appliance commercials in the 1950s to earning an Oscar nomination in 1980, and beyond. And while there’s plenty to be sentimental about in a documentary of such a beloved pop culture figure, Being Mary Tyler Moore tries its damnedest to present Moore as she was and not just present the same old behind-the-scenes anecdotes. You’re going to learn a lot more about Moore’s complicated relationship with the Women’s Liberation movement and her trip to the Betty Ford Center than you are “It May Look Like a Walnut” or “Never Bathe on Saturday.”

That’s not to say that Being Mary Tyler Moore is a downer or here to dull the shine on one of pop culture’s brightest stars. There are laughs in rewatching classic sitcom scenes as well as some home movies, including one from Moore’s 1983 bridal shower featuring Betty White being hilarious off-the-cuff. But Being Mary Tyler Moore isn’t content to just run through the career highlights and lowlights and call it a day. It aims for something deep, honest, and timeless — something that can deservedly sit side by side with the best of Moore’s own work.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This isn’t the kind of fluff that would air on cable in the late ’90s. Instead, think more along the lines of Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the artful look at the life of Fred Rogers.

Performance Worth Watching: I know it’s her documentary, but Being Mary Tyler Moore is a fantastic showcase of Moore’s talent — all of her talents. Obviously she was a great comedic actor, but her musicality is nowhere near as lauded. We hear plenty of her singing voice and see lots of her dancing, which makes me want to track down the bizarre, short-lived late ’70s variety show she hosted with David Letterman and Michael Keaton in the cast. Sadly, that part of her career goes unmentioned, although there is footage from it in the doc.

Memorable Dialogue: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, another one of the all-time greats: “There was no other show like The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her morphing from Laura Petrie into Mary Richards was such a feminist statement and one that got into my bones.”

Our Take: This unflinching look at the life of Mary Tyler Moore comes from Lena Waithe, whose interest in and admiration of Moore is well documented. Knowing that Being Mary Tyler Moore comes from such a super fan, the documentary’s restraint is actually commendable. Instead of packing the feature with wall-to-wall A-listers talking to-camera, the attention stays focused on Moore from beginning to end. In fact, Moore — via archival footage — is the only person you see being interviewed onscreen. This is more or less the same approach taken in another recent HBO documentary on Donna Summer, and in both cases, this laser-focused execution makes you feel much more part of a real narrative as its unfolding rather than a fawning retrospective.

For fans of Moore’s work, Being Mary Tyler Moore is a must watch — and I say this as someone who learned via this doc that he owns a vintage print of the Moore portrait that hung on the office wall of her husband, producer Grant Tinker, in the 1970s. Yes, I’m a massive fan of Moore’s, and more than one anecdote in this documentary pushed me to tears. Some were familiar, like the story of how Moore lobbied to wear pants on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a story that I originally heard in Nick at Nite ads in the ’90s. There’s the unofficial torch-passing moment to Moore from Lucille Ball, which I’ve written about before. Some of Being Mary Tyler Moore is part of known TV lore, but it’s all repackaged in an incredibly engaging way.

But Being Mary Tyler Moore isn’t just all the same old stories that I’ve heard (and retold) before. The archival interviews — as well as the new comments from legends like James Burrows and James L. Brooks — are with the intuition and insight afforded to a modern point of view, revelatory. The doc opens with a 1966 interview between Moore and David Susskind, an interview that unknowingly created the thesis statement for this very documentary. Moore is confronted rather bluntly with Susskind’s incredibly misogynistic critique of her Dick Van Dyke Show character Laura Petrie, which essentially boils down to her being unbelievable as a wife because she isn’t a total nag. The annoyance (to put it lightly) in Moore’s eyes is evident while she diplomatically refutes this entire talking point. It’s really gratifying to see Moore stand up for her character, herself, and half of the human population.

And that’s the mission of Being Mary Tyler Moore; that’s why the documentary has the name that it has. The film aims to untangle the complicated persona of the woman who played America’s favorite housewife (albeit a housewife with agency, opinions, and sex appeal) as well as a career woman who was seen as the face of feminism (albeit a career woman who was also a bit of a goody two shoes). Going into Being Mary Tyler Moore knowing the intent of the doc, I was actually bracing myself for my fave to be given the unglamorous warts-and-all treatment.

What I appreciate about Being Mary Tyler Moore, though, is that it both acknowledges that Moore was a complicated person and is also satisfied with that being the answer to the central question asked by the doc and plenty of interviewers in the doc. Who was Mary Tyler Moore? She was a perpetually married woman playing an iconic single lady. She was a warm person with cold parents. She was an incredibly loving stepmother who had a hard time connecting with her biological son. She was seen as a pioneering producer, but she gave all credit to her husband. She was a feminist who didn’t call herself a feminist. The film doesn’t try to soften or sharpen Moore’s edges, instead acknowledging that people contain multitudes. Considering that Moore was on TV trying to tell David Susskind that exact thing in 1966, it’s fitting that that be the thesis of a doc about her life.

Moore’s personal life is perhaps the only place where Being Mary Tyler Moore comes up short. For a large chunk of it, Being Mary Tyler Moore feels more focused on her career and the seismic impact of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and less on Moore herself. And after presenting us with all of these messy, human contradictions, you kinda want the doc to dig in and examine those a little more. However, that’s likely impossible to do without veering into conjecture. It’s telling that the part of the film that feels the most intimate comes all the way at the end when we enter the 1980s and her marriage to Dr. Robert Levine, himself a producer of this very doc. There’s only so much Moore ever said about herself publicly, which means we can only get to know her so well. Even in death, Moore’s still controlling her narrative — and, as the doc reveals, that’s quintessentially Mary.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Being Mary Tyler Moore successfully humanizes and celebrates this lovable but ultimately unknowable culture icon.