Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work starts with a montage of her early days as an emerging star. The editors managed to dig up her Johnny Carson appearances and some black and white footage to span Rivers’ vast career. The film then morphs into Joan as a standup comic. She is no stranger to vulgar language or to self-deprecating humor and this delights the crowd. Joan makes no secret of the numerous knives that have sculpted her face to be as immovable as concrete. This is the price she pays for looking young, from the neck up! Her first foray into filthiness on stage comes with a story about her daughter being offered a playboy shoot for 400K from the waist up. Asking her mother for permission turned into a unique experience as Joan told her to ask for 200K more and to show her pussy! Joan starts with a bang so to speak and here we go…

Joan has offered these documentarians (Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg) an intimate look into a milestone year of her life at age 75. She begins by commiserating with her assistant Jocelyn that she has no Vegas shows and only a measly play lined up which pays nothing. To make matters shoddier than worse Kathy Griffin has stolen her shows. How much does that suck? Her manager Billy Sammeth is a huge part of her life. He lets us in on an inside joke; the whites on an unfilled planner hurts Joan’s eyes so she puts on her sunglasses before viewing. It is still at this point hard to tell if she is a curmudgeon, a master satirist, or a mixture of too many emotions to count. Sammeth admits she is past her expiration date concerning popularity but admires her unwillingness to abdicate iconic status to anyone, even Betty White! Joan is a "work addict" and that is the best habit imaginable. In between many of the career woes we are treated to footage of her career forty years ago. She sounds the same today and through plastic surgery, she amazingly looks the same if not younger. Even her hands are well-taken care of and look anything but 75 years old.

Nearly every role/part/gig dissatisfies Joan as she demands serious roles, not fading or vapid cameos. For a woman of substance she demands more and better. Spoiler alert: Joan Rivers will be on the next season of NBC’s "Celebrity Apprentice"! Her greatest current ambition is to make a huge success out of the play she has written and will star in by 2011. The play is a serious of mini-sodes from her life and career. It seems from watching her that Joan Rivers is her own best publicist. I am already rolling out the red carpet in my mind for her to keep touting new projects.

In the middle of the discourse about Joan’s acting career, teenage ambitions and comedic abilities we are treated to another vignette from her comedy club performance. In this situation she tells her staff she is a diva and even sometimes "divas get lonely…so staff…who’s gonna fuck me tonight?" (LMAO) Are her jokes hysterical or is she a master of the element of surprise? There is something to be said for a plastic surgery queen who is 75 telling naughty jokes to twenty somethings. I lean toward Joan’s talent as the decisive factor because she can deliver a joke like Ed McMahon could deliver a million dollars won in a sweepstakes I never even joined.

Rivers lives grandiosely. She requires a constant flow of income to maintain her expensive habit (home decoration). Joan has also made me jealous. She has compiled a Dewey decimal system of jokes that I only wish I could collect over a lifetime. She is a master joke maker. Her "vagina farts are so loud her gynecologist wears ear plugs" and now I am going to vomit. Her jokes about abortion and childbirth are anything but offensive, they are freaking hilarious. Rivers assures us no man has ever told her she is beautiful. Let me be the first Ms. Rivers, you are smoking hot for 75! Her recent lampoon novel Men Are Stupid…and They Like Big Boobs may be outrageous but it is true. I want a free copy movie studio! Marriage was not all hearts and flowers for Joan and her husband. She somewhat regrets not having been more available for her daughter Melissa who looks like a clone of her.

Let me cut to the chase since I am not a stenographer. This is a self-commissioned documentary that cuts to the heart of who Joan Rivers is, was and continues to be. Before pressing play I had never known about her background as a comedienne or anything about her life really. Sure we all heart about her surgeries and desperation to remain young at face value but the details of her marriage, daughter, career, obsessions, habits, personal values, etc. were unknown to me. Sure this is show business and not some unauthorized objective portrayal of her but nothing is truly unbiased. Rivers comes across as one of the most sensational and likable women show business of any kind has ever seen. As an actress she is dynamic, as a comedian she is uproariously funny, as a writer she is clever, and as a person she seems like a darling. Of course I know none of her true actions for certain and this documentary is a fun project intended to sway our feelings toward loving her and on some level pitying her, but that is Joan being Joan. She is just a formerly hot Jewish girl with a New York accent, a desperation to be noticed and who she looks younger now than she did at 25. Love her, hate her, how can anyone feel indifference? She is a character. It is sad she is not more relevant, I wish HBO had sponsored a Joan Rivers comedy show like they did for Dane Cook and Chris Rock. I am not sure I have ever heard funnier jokes from a woman on stage. When the curtain someday calls we will all lose a treasure that sadly we barely take notice of. Bravo Ms. Rivers, good show and many happy projects!