She is America's pre-eminent comedienne, iconoclastic to the core, now in her late 70s, candid about fighting off the ravages of advancing age with a knife . . . and in the revealing close ups, one can see the scars of those knives, though they are well-blended into her pulled facial muscles . . . she is the poster girl for nip and tuck, and quite up front about it. And no matter what you think of her humor, just looking at all the results of multiple facial surgeries from very close angles should keep your interest.
Her humor has raised eyebrows for decades, and you can see that her own eyebrows have been raised by pulling her face up and back to the point that she appears almost elven. None of this is meant to be catty. Joan herself often pokes fun at her own history of cosmetic surgery.
But this film is more than an "oh my God" look at this enduring diva. It is also a poignant look into her professional life — what it takes to get to the top, and worse, what it takes to remain there, in what she twice refers to as a "very cruel business." And that cruelty has taken its toll, carefully touched upon as this documentary plays out . . . and it is fascinating. All she has ever wanted was to be told that she was beautiful, and to be considered as an actress . . . and I found this to be riveting, because she made me realize that comedians ARE actors . . . they just do their acting through comedy, something that real actors do not seem to be willing to acknowledge . . . and certainly not the bludgeoning critics.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work can be streamed from Netflix.