Joan Rivers' Comeback

The subtitle of a new documentary about a year in the life of Joan Rivers, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, embodies so many meanings in four words. First and foremost, it refers to Joan Rivers' personality. She is seen as a comedic icon with a penchant for the un-PC. Example: "The only child I could ever like is Helen Keller because she doesn't talk." Back in the 1970's, she openly made jokes about abortions, referring to them as "appendectomies." She is even unabashed at calling her own daughter "a stupid cunt" for refusing a $400,000 Playboy gig.

Second, there's the meaner interpretation of Joan Rivers as the work of plastic surgeons. She is notorious for having face lifts up the wahzoo. Her Comedy Central Celebrity Roast appearance resulted in a barrage of jokes along the lines of "Joan Rivers has had so many facelifts, that she has to sneeze out her clit." Sigh. But this documentary allows Rivers to defend herself on the topic of plastic surgery, and she has several good points. To Rivers, plastic surgery is a progressive thing for women, giving us an opportunity to purchase something we weren't born with. Beauty--or the lack thereof--has been a constant theme in Rivers' life, and a source of many of her jokes. "My mother told me that looks aren't everything." Beat. "She told me this often."

Finally--and most importantly--Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is about Joan Rivers doing whatever she can to find a piece of work. At 75 (now 77), Rivers is as energetic and eager as ever. The source of her passion is less a desire for money as a desire to matter. Through interviews with her manager, Billy Sammeth, we learn that Rivers's long-running private joke is "let me get my sunglasses" before she opens her datebook so as not to be blinded by the pages of inkless white. So this year in the life of Joan Rivers is really a year in the life of Rivers making her career matter. The journey begins with a a new play, Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress. Since Rivers's Broadway debut, Fun City, bombed she had been reluctant to open a new show in New York. This time, she takes the play first to Edinburgh and then to London to test the waters. Though the audience feels bad for Rivers when she only receives weak critical reception, Rivers is able to put this immediately behind her to do her next big thing, appear on celebrity Apprentice.

At the same time, money still plays a role in Rivers' life. Rivers lives "as Marie Antoinette would have lived had she had money," in an ornately decorated Manhattan penthouse. She claims she has to work to support this lifestyle. In addition, she has many staff, including a housekeeper, a manager, an agent, and two assistants. These each come with children whose private school tuition Rivers has also kindly taken up. As such, we Rivers finds herself doing gigs in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, boarding a plane to LA, sleeping for three hours, and waking up again in Minneapolis. Though her lifestyle might be garish, and her personality garrulous, there is something commendable about Joan Rivers' work ethic. At film's end, I found myself rooting for her in her goal of exceeding the longevity of Don Rickles' and Phyllis Diller's careers.