Joan Rivers is known to most as the poster girl for plastic surgery and the butt of its jokes. Perhaps some of you know her for her jewelry on QVC or seeing her on the red carpet during award season. But Joan Rivers is known as the “First Queen of Comedy” and after watching Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, she has earned that title.
This documentary takes a rare look in to the life of Joan Rivers and what it takes to stay in show business. When this documentary was filmed, she was 75 years old and still working and doing stand-up. People have a lot of addictions, and Joan’s is working. Rivers will tell you that she is a performer and will always be one, and her biggest nightmare is having nothing on her calendar. She wants to be busy and will turn nothing down. Her career has been a roller coaster ride and she has been able to reinvent herself several times over.
Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg capture Rivers being funny, crude, and outlandish. We may expect all of those things from her. But the directors also capture her being vulnerable, insecure, and brutally honest about herself and her career. There is trust between Rivers and the directors because they capture the sad, quiet moments along with the smiles and jokes. She lets them come in to her life and get personal. We even get to see a close-up of Joan while she is getting make-up put on. Now this is sacred territory for Rivers.
The documentary shows a completely different side of Rivers and expressing what she thinks and feels. We also rediscover her past and how she began her journey in the entertainment business. She was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson all the time and even became the permanent guest host. She is an actress, a writer, and has been on Broadway. And over the years, people have lost sight of that and she desperately wants to bring those aspects of her life back in to focus.
Rivers lets everything go in this documentary. She talks about her manager who is the only person that can relate to her. You see Joan and her daughter, Melissa, being supportive and arguing. She discusses her husband’s suicide and how angry she felt and how she got through it. Of course, when things get too serious, she breaks out a joke that you never see coming.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is a candid look at a woman who you may think you have figured out, and come to find out you were not even close. There is so much more to Rivers and how she continues to work and keep up with the times. She has worked her ass off for decades and she has no plans of stopping now. This documentary proves that she is an icon and capable of doing anything. It shows how much she has given to comedy and inspired the women who do it now. She opened the door for a lot of comediennes, but she wants to keep opening more while giving every doubter the finger.
“Nature Boy” Brandon Vick is the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and star of Brandon’s Box Office In Your Mouth. Follow him on Twitter@SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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