Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work had a reality show like inception and ended up as a documentary of a TV reality show star. Not that she wasn’t a star already but through the footage captured during fourteen months of the 76th year of her life interspersed with file footage we get a revealing look at some dramatic points in television history. There’s her departure as permanent guest host as anointed by Johnny Carson himself of the prestigious Tonight Show. Also explored is the catastrophic personal toll resulting from her failed move to the fledgling Fox network where she went head to head not just with Carson but also her new bosses. The film starts inauspiciously as this somewhat mercenary septuagenarian with an ebbing notoriety takes on stand up gigs at divvy clubs in order to maintain her lavish lifestyle. Looking like she is capable of doing absolutely anything for money we’re there when she gets the call from Donald Trump to do Celebrity Apprentice. What seems like another desperate sell out turns out to be a game changer as the funny and feisty Rivers took that show’s top honours which put her career back on top - even though the experience brought out the daggers that define the love/hate relationship she has with daughter Melissa. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work documents the career of a living comedy legend and it could not be more fascinating. I mean, can we talk? No longer lost in the ubiquitous face-lift jokes that follow her everywhere (she originating many) is the courageous pioneering she did for generations of grateful female performers who followed.