DAN WEBSTER:
Nothing is closer than the bond of blood. At least that’s what people like to say about family relationships. And in some, maybe many cases, it’s actually true.
Yet how many families do you know of in which everyone gets along? How common is it that, during holiday get-togethers especially, some brother or sister or uncle or even cousin who’s maybe had a bit too much to drink, starts an argument that pretty quickly brings up old grievances, resentments and maybe even a few recriminations?
Those kinds of old, often unspoken yet simmering attitudes lay at the heart of His Three Daughters, a Netflix film written and directed by Azazel Jacobs.
The three sisters Jacobs presents to us couldn’t be more different. The eldest, Katie (played by Carrie Coon), is jaded and judgmental, a no-nonsense mother having difficulties connecting with her own daughter. Christina (played by Elizabeth Olsen), meanwhile, is the peacekeeper, a woman whose emotional balance feels a bit new-agey… but still genuine.
And then we have Rachel (played by Natasha Lyonne), stepsister to Katie and Christine, who spends her days smoking dope (it’s legal, she keeps insisting) and betting on sports.
The three have gathered at the New York City apartment that Rachel shares with their father Vinny (played briefly but effectively by Jay O. Saunders). Seems Vinny is near death, as the hospice worker Angel (played by Rudy Galvin) keeps reminding the sisters. And he could go at any time.
Which, of course, adds to the tension that already exists between the siblings. Katie is upset that Rachel failed to get Vinny to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate) form while he was still conscious and able to understand what he was doing. And, too, she is aghast both at finding only a bag of apples in the apartment’s refrigerator and that Rachel insists on smoking inside, so near their dying dad, even if it is in her own bedroom.
When Rachel ends up heading to the apartment complex’s courtyard to smoke, this leads to a confrontation with the resident security guard (played by Jose Febus). And it further inflames her own irritation, not just with Katie but Christine as well whenever mention of the apartment’s future is brought up—the implication, as Rachel sees it, that she’s a freeloader looking to cash in when dad passes on.
And so on, through Katie’s laboring over Vinny’s obituary, Rachel’s having to justify her attempts to pass time with her boyfriend Benjy (played by Jovan Adepo), the emotions between the two simmering to the point where even-keeled Christine blows up at both of them.
Jacobs captures all this in a format that feels taken directly from a stage play. Almost all of the action, except for the courtyard scenes, takes place in the apartment, yet his deft camera work manages to navigate a good balance, never letting the set—or the emotions filling it—feel too claustrophobic.
As any good playwright will do, Jacobs unveils the motivations of each character slowly. If we don’t learn everything about the sisters, we learn enough to make sense of what has brought them all to this juncture. And in this, Jacobs benefits from the efforts of his talented cast.
Coons manages to make ill-tempered Katie feel worthy of our empathy by showing her inherent vulnerabilities. Olsen’s Christine becomes, over the course of the film, much more than a mere passive-aggressive avoider of conflict. And Lyonne’s Rachel, for all her quirks, ends up showing herself to be a caring soul—and as deserving of love as anyone.
His Three Daughters, then is a study of relationships, of how they work and how so often they don’t. Of how the needs of three women, tied either by blood or—in Rachel’s case—by marriage, carry over from childhood and affect their individual abilities to find some sense of adult peace.
Not every real-life story ends so sweetly as Jacobs ends theirs. The fact of that sits at the heart of every human tragedy ever written.
For Spokane Public Radio, I’m Dan Webster.
——
Movies 101 host Dan Webster is the senior film critic for Spokane Public Radio and a blogger for Spokesman.com.