Directed By: Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg
Starring: Joan Rivers
MPAA Rating: R
My Rating: 9 / 10
Honesty...it is what has defined Joan Rivers, it is what has made her a legend, and yet it is also what has made her a target of the very people who should employ her. When her manager bluntly calls the rest of the cast of The Celebrity Apprentice a bunch of "F-listers," normal celebrities would have to issue an apology and kiss their costars' asses for the next two months, no matter how true they believed the statement to be. But, let's face it, Annie Duke and Brande Roderick are F-listers...and, as vicious as it is, brutal honesty has a sort of uncomfortable freshness about it. And no one does "brutal" better than Joan Rivers, who famously uses the f-word like it's going out of style and verbally berated a heckler during a stand-up routine. Her calling the heckler a "stupid ass" and a "son of a bitch" is documented here, and the moment is just as uncomfortable on film as it must have been in person. Though, while uncomfortable, it is also fascinating...we can practically see Joan Rivers fighting to keep the audience on her side because, while Joan has become famous by being brutally honest about others, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is about her being honest with herself, and the stark reality that haunts her everyday is that everyone, from her harshest critic to the guy in the front row, is waiting for her to fail.
