Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is an entertaining interesting movie. Interesting mostly because it is way better than a documentary about Joan Rivers should be. Like most people of my generation, Joan Rivers was just that crazy old lady that made fun of celebrities (mostly on E!) at Hollywood events. The movie revealed her to be a much more interesting character than that. Her story was surprising, I had no idea about her history as a standup comedian. I had no idea that at one point she was somewhat of a groundbreaking female comedian who spoke about things that women in polite society were not supposed to discuss.
It is obvious in the film that she is the type of person who feels very comfortable playing the victim role. While you do feel sad for her in many moments you can also see that she somewhat relishes being “oppressed” or “mistreated”.
I suggest watching for a few reasons. You get a glimpse of her as a person rather than just a caricature. You see her as a vulnerable, insecure, working comedian. You get to see her actually being funny which was mostly foreign to me up to this point. It works as a portrait of a woman in entertainment and how difficult that world can be for an older female.
It was interesting to see the great lengths she would go through to keep her calender "full", from home shopping network to live shows all over the country to the Apprentice, to a stage show attempt at Broadway, anything to be working. Also her catalog of jokes was pretty impressive, she takes her role as entertainer VERY seriously.
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