Directors: Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg
Producers: Seth Keal, Anne Sundberg
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 84 min.

(4/5)

Daytime TV has always been a wasteland of talk shows and soap operas but when I was in school, I loved nothing more than to watch a bit of trash TV before dinner. One of the shows I watched on a semi regular basis was “The Joan Rivers Show” which was sandwiched between “Donahue” and “Oprah.” It may have been “Ricky Lake”… I can’t remember and it doesn’t much matter. It’s wasn’t great but Joan Rivers always managed to get a few laughs even if sometimes she seemed to be prying them from the audience and her show was lighter than some of the other “hard hitting” issues talk shows. Little did I know that the sometimes funny woman was a stand-up comedienne and when I discovered that, years later while watching reruns of Johnny Carson, I couldn’t believe I’d never clued into her true calling. And it is a calling. There are a lot of comedians out there but Rivers is a one woman corporation.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work spends a year with Rivers, who, at the time the film is shot, is turning 75 and still trying to fill her daybook from morning to night. She’s frank, crude, unapologetic and a workaholic always trying to stay with the trends and keep her name in the press which, in turn, gets her more gigs.

Documentarians Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s make good use of their all access pass and Rivers seems more than happy (savvy business woman that she is) to have them on board for the ride, sharing the good (thousand seat theatres filled to the brim) and the bad (the firing of her long-time friend and manager, playing to hundred seat rooms in bum-fuck-nowhere) and along the way sharing insights into her career. She shares details about her early days on Carson, her marriage, her husband’s suicide and the ups and downs of her career and she does it all with wit and natural charisma.

In a business where men outnumber women and comedians come and go by the week, Rivers is an institution, a feisty trailblazer who has always been on the cutting edge and who continues to shine. Her talent really becomes apparent when she’s preparing for a Kennedy Honours show in which she shares the spotlight with a number of other comedians. She goes down the list with her thoughts on each one and casually, with no malice in her voice – just a tinge of regret – runs down the number of people on their writing staff. As for Rivers, it’s just her and her pen. Talk about David vs. Goliath. Add in the books, plays and TV appearances and its nearly impossible to believe a woman her age can keep up.

I came into Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work thinking of Rivers as many others do, a batty old woman with an unhealthy affinity for plastic surgery but I walked away with an entire new respect for this one woman show, a lively, fiery individual who will keep working because at the end of the day, its all she loves to do.

Good on you Joan. I hope you’re still at it from the other side.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Entertainment One on January 11th.

DVD Extras: A must see collection of deleted scenes, a commentary which is interesting but not particularly memorable and a Sundance Q&A which is a nice bonus but badly produced. It was obviously recorded without the proper equipment and you can’t hear the audience questions though from Joan’s answers, you can sometimes make out what they were. Short and worth a peek but could have been better – maybe edited with the questions on title cards and then Joan’s answers.