Desperate Character
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Directed by Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg Runtime: 84 min.
Desperation was always part of comedian Joan Rivers shtick. Her first appearances on Johnny Carsons The Tonight Show in the 1960s were dispatches from a reluctant housewifes wilderness. None too satisfied with her pre-Betty Friedan lot, Rivers refreshingly scoffed at domestic conventions, from homemaking to sex. Too bad documentarians Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg dont know how to read Rivers anxiety. Their film Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work follows the year in which Rivers turned 75 and, after numerous ups and downs, made a millennial media splash on Donald Trumps TV series The Celebrity Apprentice.
Stern & Sundberg dont catch the joke that Rivers is nobodys apprenticeshe even flouted Johnny Carsons mentorship, incurring his ire and losing his powerful support (she claims Carson blackballed her from the NBC network). Rivers isnt kidding when she says: I have no choice. Ask a nun why shes a nun. I have no choice.
A Piece of Work zips past the most fascinating aspects of Rivers life, missing the way her proto-feminist humor oddlydesperatelywarped into camp. Stern & Sundberg dont seem interested in why; they simply measure Rivers by the gross standards of contemporary showbiz convention where nothing matters but face time. Rivers points to a blank page in her appointment book and gasps, Thats fear. [No appointments] would mean that everything I worked for in my life didnt work. The filmmakers stay on the surface of A year in the life of a semi-legend. That subtitle doesnt make up for ignoring how Rivers once invaded the upper classes through the famous Blackglama furrier ad campaign (What becomes a legend most).
Nothingnot even daughter Melissas assessment of all comedians as damagedvalidates this worshipful portrait of craven showbiz. Stern & Sundberg admire the shamelessness that Rivers has aged into: She outlasted her Blackglama moment and then became monstrous. Only desperation explains the horrendous plastic surgery she boldly confessed to decades ago. It made her seem more showbiz than normal, whereas her comedyedgy Jewish domesticityonce made her seem saner than most.
Rivers admits, My career is an actress career. I only play a comedian. Thats a key insight to how careers chose people, not vice-versa. Consider how the talented actress Oprah Winfreys ambitions foundered into a billionaire talk show host where her anxieties and egotism go undisguised. In comedy, Rivers eccentricities hang out in sometimes obnoxious, brilliant ways. (She handles a Wisconsin heckler with aplomb, then regret.) Her ambitions as an actress and playwright are shown but not explored. Her outlandish autographical TV movie Starting Again is glossed. Theres no mention of her 1970 film directing debut Rabbit Test that starred Billy Crystal as a pregnant manor how that project illustrated Rivers ingenuity and the showbiz industrys timidity.
There was a chance to make an honest industry portrait like Lisa Kudrows HBO series The Comeback, where her desperate Hollywood character Valerie Cherish embodied both arrogance and vulnerability. But from its Mommie Dearest opening close-up of a womans make-up prep, A Piece of Work immediately delimits its subject. Stern & Sundberg edge into making Rivers an object of fag hag pathos rather than explore her intelligence. Its unfair to Rivers that this superficial portrait suffices to present her as a showbiz yenta; viewers are encouraged to revere Rivers as a fame monster.