Joan Rivers: A Piece of WorkRated 14 Accompaniment (Coarse Language, Crude Content) ~ Runs 84 minutes
Dir.: Ricki Stern/Anne Sundberg, US, 2010
Joan Rivers, Jocelyn Pickett, Billy Sammeth, Kathy Griffin
Digital projection.
“One of the smarter, more unexpectedly touching documentaries of the year, and I recommend it to you whether you love Rivers or loathe the very thought of her.” - Ty Burr, The Boston Globe. “One of the best movies ever made about the brutal and unforgiving world of show business.” - The Dallas Morning News. “This very engaging year-in-the-life-of portrait proves that the perennially caustic comic has no use for anybody’s pity. She’s got no time for it, either. Featured here in her 76th year, Rivers maintains a schedule gruelling enough to impress workaholics half her age. When not travelling across the US to perform stand-up shows - during which she demonstrates an undiminished flair for viciousness toward her audience and herself - she’s busy pushing her jewellery and cosmetics lines. Stern and Sundberg also provide bits and pieces of biography to fill out the picture of how she got here and why she deserves respect as a forerunner for professional funny ladies.... Dramatic arcs are provided by her travails with an autobiographical play she mounts in London and LA, her deteriorating relationship with her long-time manager and an ultimately triumphant stint on The Celebrity Apprentice. But just as memorable are Rivers’ displays of generosity to friends and family and her own expressions of vulnerability. Emotionally unguarded yet intensely disciplined as an artist and performer, Rivers is a contradictory and compelling figure... Far from freakish or past her due, she seems downright heroic.” - Jason Anderson, Eye Magazine
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