His Three Daughters, 2024.
Written and Directed by Azazel Jacobs.
Starring Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, Jay O. Sanders, Jovan Adepo, Rudy Galvan, Jose Febus, Randy Ramos Jr., and Jasmine Bracey.
SYNOPSIS:
This tense, touching, and funny portrait of family dynamics follows three estranged sisters as they converge in a New York apartment to care for their ailing father and try to mend their own broken relationship with one another.
While recalling a memory of her father, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) remembers a younger time when he told her not to believe the ways movies depict death. More specifically, it never looked or sounded right and always lacked realism. Perhaps that’s one reason why in His Three Daughters, writer/director Azazel Jacobs mainly abstains from showing the dying father in hospice, worsening and gradually losing all control of his mental faculties. This is not a film about conveying a naturalistic death but authentically gutting drama that unfolds within the rest of the family. It also doesn’t need to manipulate the viewer emotionally.
The titular estranged daughters are Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), who currently resides with the father and has been caring for him throughout his illness, Katie (Carrie Coon), and the previously mentioned Christina, both of whom have families far away from this apartment complex. During that stage where viewers are getting their bearings on who these characters are, it initially seems that Rachel is the directionless burnout stoner who flounders at getting things done, especially since the opening scene sees her getting chastised for not having the “do not resuscitate” order in place, something that’s becoming increasingly harder to obtain since their father is alert for maybe a few minutes a day. Even then, from the sounds of it, his words are mostly gibberish, which is briefly replicated at points when these sisters converse, suggesting that one doesn’t have to lose their mental state to struggle with communication or not listen to one another.
Elaborating on that, this film is about what’s not said as much as it is about the things that are said, whether it be blowup arguments between the sisters or the emotional revelations they grasp when they either stop centering themselves or open up. It’s also about how these three daughters (some coming from different mothers) all feel like outsiders as siblings or part of the family in different ways. Expectedly, it also taps into how everyone has their own form of coping and grieving.
Rachel no longer has the emotional strength to enter her father’s room. According to the fast-talking, highly judgmental Katie, Rachel is an irresponsible stoner who doesn’t know how to take care of anyone or anything, consistently throwing shade at her for smoking in the apartment, online parlay gambling (which seems to be her only source of income), and the refrigerator only containing rotten apples. Most hurtful, she believes Rachel will be fine the day their father dies because her name is on the lease for the apartment. In reality, this is a stressed woman who has given her all to her father and is the only one who has been here consistently throughout the illness. Everyone is so estranged that they now see projected versions of one another, seemingly so caught up in pain and the past that it’s hard for them to take a step back and observe something true.
Tapping into another psychological element of family and human behavior, the often unfiltered Rachel can’t find it in her to stand up for herself in front of Katie (when her occasional visitor, played by Jovan Adepo, does it for her, it’s a cause to stand up and cheer.) Christina tries to play the role of peacekeeper and not only wants to have a relationship with both sisters but also actively tries to get all three of them in their father’s room at the same time, presumably assuming that there will be some potential catharsis among the squabbling that keeps getting louder and more volatile. There is also the question of how much of a pretend show Christina is putting on since, for as much as she would like to be close to her sisters, she is not afraid to give each of them a taste of what might be her honest thoughts whenever the bickering goes too far and crosses into a selfish territory disrespecting the fact that their father is dying a few rooms away.
Katie and Christina are also stressed with checking in on their respective families, with the former at one point questioning how she is the villain to everyone (her teenage daughter has entered an infuriating rebellious phase, refusing to listen to anything her mother says.) Since we don’t actually see or hear any of these characters, once again, we are forced to ask how much of that is the truth and how much these characters, especially Katie, need to do some introspection.
Speaking of perspective, Azazel Jacobs saves his greatest trick for last, making for a momentarily intentionally confounding yet breathtakingly tear-jerking sequence that plays into the concept of what is heard and what isn’t. He is highly confident and serves as the editor to ensure these bold ideas land with the intended, stark impact. It certainly offsets that there isn’t too much going on here visually; the film sometimes feels like a stage play aside from the rare moment it attempts something more cinematic, such as fixating on characters simultaneously while they move about the apartment.
Even when the film starts to do a few expected things, such as the sisters slowly breaking down barriers and coming together, the screenplay does so in a lifelike, naturalistic fashion grounded in character personality and not filmmaking convenience. During the fourth or fifth visit from the hospice advisor (Rudy Galvan), he repeats the same speech that their father could die any day now. When he leaves, Rachel jokingly suggests that he says something ridiculous just to shake it up and see if they are still listening. To Christina’s delight, Katie jumps into this humorous conversation, breaking a thick layer of dysfunction. It’s a relief not just from the specter of looming death but the pain within the relationships of these sisters (and a playful way of poking fun at the mildly repetitive material here.)
While various emotions run high waiting for Dad to die any day now, Katie spearheads writing the obituary, which naturally comes to include Rachel and Christina as a means to understand who he was to each of them. What makes His Three Daughters so emotionally riveting is that each lead also has a firm grasp on their characters and how to play up each layer. Each shift in their relationship results from something achingly human, with gradually revealed details leaving us consistently recontextualizing our opinions of them. Simply put, it’s a story about impending death and sibling dysfunction that feels bracingly real.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
