Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story

Joan Rivers writes such insightful, razor-sharp books about her life and her family that it's an automatic disappointment to see she and her daughter Melissa playing themselves in a TV-movie written by somebody else. What happened to this woman's voice, to her sense of truth? Nearly everything in this biographical drama rings false. After Joan's career is broadsided by bad ratings and press, her manager-husband takes his own life, leading the comedienne and her only child to battle amongst themselves before finding comfort in survival. There's a quick moment in the second-half that is well-realized (Joan attempting to date again, but finding the whole process hurtful), however the heated arguments between mother and daughter fail to come off (they may work as a camp). This TV-movie isn't badly made, and obviously has the intriguing factor of having the two principals playing themselves, but it needed a lighter, more deft and flexible touch. Director Oz Scott barrels through as if he's filming "Ordinary People--The Sequel".

This movie is rather remarkable! I can't think of another time when two people played themselves in a biopic to such effect. I'm sure it's happened, but I'm not aware of it.

It's amazing that Joan and Melissa were able to pull this off! It had to hurt, and it couldn't have been easy, but they did a very good job. I almost feel guilty for liking this, since it's a true story, but it plays like a sudsy 1980s melodrama a la Dynasty or something! There is a glamour to it, thanks to the grandiose nature of its star, Joan Rivers, and I appreciate this movie as a nice and bittersweet melodrama. I love it for that! I'm just sorry for them that it's true.

Good movie for anyone who likes "woman's pictures" as they used to say in old Hollywood. Minus some of the crude jokes from Rivers, I could totally see fellow Joan i.e. Crawford starring in this!

And on another note, I was again reminded by this movie, just how much warmer, more genuine, and weighty TV movies from back in the day were compared to now- when they seem so fake and amateur. That is yet another reason to love this movie.

This is a truly dreadful movie. It had some of the worst acting I have ever seen. Melissa Rivers has no talent as an actress. Joan Rivers is a good comedienne but she should never try to do drama. If they needed a cathartic experience to help them heal then they should have just written a book and gone to therapy. How self important can you be? Melissa was so bad that she did not even know what word to emphasize in a sentence. Of course Joan Rivers should love her daughter and try to help her in her career but to promote her in this way is just in poor taste. I'm very sorry for their tragic loss but this movie was just tacky. If it were not about such a sad topic I might say that it could be worth watching with friends to make fun of but the subject matter is too sad for that. Give this one a miss for your own sake.

Whenever Joan Rivers was on Howard Stern's radio show, he and co-host Robin Quivers would tease Joan about this melodramatic "saga" as Stern called it, and Joan would laugh along... It's a TV-movie about how Joan and her daughter Melissa, playing themselves, dealt with their husband/dad's suicide...

Well it is bad, but not bad enough as Joan's acting is almost-okay but she's trying too hard not to seem like she's trying... so it becomes vacant, boring, the polar opposite of what kind of person she really is, on stage or as a guest on talk shows... She even does standup within the movie, and ironically her overacting is at its paramount here when it should be the most natural... Imagine Jack Nicklaus's biopic and he can't even swing a club correctly...

Meanwhile it's Melissa who goes all-out-overboard for a screeching Emmy, chewing the scenery while arguing with her mom or her drug addict beau (Gil from Beverly Hills 90210), but, she too plays it just safely enough; it's like watching a drama student's dissertation and the student gets a C-minus...

Overall, this could have been more fun if Joan put some real energy into the role of herself... who by then she should've known much better... which wouldn't improve on already terrible script but it'd be more fun to wallow in the unintentional humor, which is what nighttime soap yarns are for.