Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work (M)

Pioneer comedian. Plastic-surgery freak. Red-carpet maven. Foul-mouthed shock artist. No matter how you think of her, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is likely to expand your idea of who, exactly, Joan Rivers is… Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg make the most of their subject’s characteristic mixture of bravery and the desire to entertain, even if at her own expense. Working mostly with observational footage and interviews both funny and frank, Stern and Sundberg pepper the film with enough archival material to remind us of Rivers’ bright taboo-breaking beginnings and of the disappointments and tragedies in her life. The end result is a complex portrait of a born entertainer.