Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Opening with a close-up of the crow’s-feet around its subject’s eyes, then expanding to reveal her Botox-frozen upper lip, the documentary-portrait Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work celebrates Saint Joan the Resilient, Showbiz Survivor. Directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg dogged the indomitable stand-up comic throughout the course of her 76th year — a typically hectic period during which Rivers lurched from disappointment to triumph and back. It’s nice to know that Joan is a real person (she comes across as a warm, unembarrassed egomaniac), but it’s the character she invented and plays that makes her interesting. Stern and Sundberg don’t provide much context, but they’re not alone in their disinclination to ponder their subject’s art; Rivers remains remarkably untheorized by culture critics. At one point, Joan’s daughter, Melissa, addresses her rivalry with the entity she calls “the Career,” as in her mother’s. There’s plenty of that in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, but I wouldn’t have minded a bit more of Joan Rivers: The Text.
