His Three Daughters - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s not often that a film dealing with big issues such as death, grief and dysfunctional family relationships doesn’t overplay its hand and become overly contrived, over wrought or just plain maudlin.

Azazel Jacob’s His Three Daughters overcomes all three by exercising restraint and feels all the more real. It’s superbly acted, often surprising in its choice of narrative direction, occasionally amusing and, eventually, very poignant.

Jacob was moved to write the script after becoming a primary carer for his parents during Covid. And he tailored the roles to his three main stars: Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon.

These three talented A-listers play, respectively, Rachel, Christina and Katie - three siblings who reunite at the New York apartment of Vincent, their dying father, to be there for him as he enters his final days.

But the tension between them is apparent from the outset. Christina and Katie are sisters by blood; Rachel entered the family when she was young, when Vincent re-married following the death of his first wife.

To Christina and Katie, Rachel is a stoner with no ambition, who struggles to look after herself. But it is Rachel who has cared for Vincent in recent years, living with him in his apartment and tending to his ever increasing needs. She knows how her sisters feel about her but tries to stay out of their way, to avoid conflict - even pandering to their request to stop smoking weed in the home.

Christina, meanwhile, is the youngest daughter a yoga loving, Grateful Dead fan with a penchant for singing to Vincent. She seems calm but she’s struggling to come to terms with new motherhood and doesn’t know if she wants more.

In stark contrast is the highly strung Katie, a bullish older sister, who frequently chastises Rachel and who likes to take control of everything from the cooking to getting Vincent’s DNR signed. But while certainly a doer, she is clearly at odds with the position she has created for herself, which also places her at odds with her teenage daughter.

Lyonne, Olsen and Coon play their parts beautifully. If an early scene feels a little stagey and theatrical, and threatens to turn you off the sisters before they’ve even given you the chance to properly get to know them, then it’s worth sticking with them to uncover what makes them tick - because thereafter, the performances settle and feel genuinely lived in: grounded, natural and honestly flawed.

There are inevitable fallouts and confrontations, as well as an emotional coming together, all driven by the impending nature of Vincent’s death.

But while so much of what happens could have felt manipulative and insincere, the journey here feels much more authentic. The smiles and tears earned.

You may not always agree - or even like - everyone by the end of proceedings, but you can’t fail to at least empathise with them. The performances are suitably nuanced, not grandstanding, offering insight and clues as to where characters are coming from, or why they behave the way they do. Nothing is spoon-fed.

Coon, for example, may be the most outwardly domineering of the sisters, but there is clearly pain inside too - possibly inner disdain for the type of person she has become, or perhaps guilt at not seeing her father more. Maybe both.

Audiences are invited to draw their own conclusions. They are also allowed to relate.

The same praise can be extended to both Olsen and Lyonne - the latter emerging, arguably, as the most sympathetic and likeable of the trio. Lyonne wears her feelings of being the misunderstood outsider plainly for all to see - yet she continually masks, whether it’s the disdain or disappointment she feels towards her sisters or the impending grief she is likely to feel as primary carer for Vincent.

Ironically, she gets a mid-film ‘champion’ during a moment when her boyfriend Benjy (brilliantly played by Jovan Adepo) imparts his own wisdom and observations on Katie and Christina, smartly hitting several nails on the head. But, again, its position in the film doesn’t allow for anything too feel good or celebratory - rather it’s delivered in a frustrated, defensive kind of way, devoid of fireworks. It nevertheless remains a bravura moment for Adepo, as an actor.

And that leaves Olsen, whose measured performance shrewdly combines moments of self-doubt, compassion and kindness, with some nicely self-deprecating ignorance. She also hints at an outsider’s complex, as evidenced by her continued love for (and defence of) The Grateful Dead. It’s a performance that hits the highs of her earlier breakthrough roles in indie films such as Martha Marcy May Marlene and, belatedly, the complexity of her layered turn in WandaVision.

Credit also goes to Azazel not just for his script, but also his direction. It may be minimalist and largely confined to one home - but it’s generous in giving room to his cast and avoids the need to resort to anything grandstanding. Even a profound sequence involving Vincent late on, which initially invites a certain reality-questioning criticism that could have undermined the film’s final act, succeeds in offering a surprising resolution that adds to the quality, while offering viewers even more to debate afterwards.

Put together, His Three Daughters is an intelligent, thought-provoking and highly impressive character study that, crucially, feels both painfully and hopefully relatable.