Sisters at Odds Come Together in Grief in Netflix's 'His Three Daughters'

By Sara Clements | Film | September 24, 2024 |

By Sara Clements | Film | September 24, 2024 |

There’s an inevitability we all must face. One that pains us to even think about. That’s the death of our parents. It may seem like that day will never come, but it will. For many, we will be the last people our parents see, having taken care of them in their final years, months, days, and moments. Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters follows three sisters who come together for that very task, to take care of their dying father in his final days. Seeing my 100-year-old grandmother being taken care of by my mother and her siblings, I’ve learned one thing: grief can bring out the worst in people. Your loved one may still be breathing, but there’s the waiting. There’s a lot of fear in that waiting. There’s a lot of unknown, too, in not knowing what will happen when the time comes. Jacobs captures all this and more in a film that’s a whirlwind of emotion. It’s a film that’s not only a meditation on grief and death but of life and love, too. It’s about connection and how difficult it is for some families to have that, and how hard it is for rifts to mend.

Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) loves the Grateful Dead. While back at the childhood apartment where her sister, Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), still lives with their ailing father, Christina finds an old concert tee she used to wear. This sparks a memory. While Rachel assumes that all Grateful Dead fans got together to do drugs, Christina shuts her down, explaining that what she found with that community was connection. She was around people who were there to relate and to care. People who never had those things and had to go find them.

Many scenes in His Three Daughters stand out, but this one in particular speaks to the strained relationship between these sisters and the loneliness it caused Christina, in particular. Now in adulthood, Christina’s role in this trio is one of calm. She can seem like an emotional wreck as she lingers on how being away from her child is hard for her, but she’s perhaps the strongest of the group because she’s the glue desperately trying to keep them together. She tries to de-escalate the stressful situations that arise and finds herself in the middle of the fights between Rachel and their elder sister, Katie (Carrie Coon).

Katie is the all-business fast talker. She barely lets anyone get a word in, especially Rachel, who she constantly criticizes. Both Katie and Christina let their emotions out through ramblings, while Rachel just takes it all in with deep breath. Each conversation feels like it’s on the verge of tipping into an argument, capturing not only this strained dynamic but how each of them deals with grief differently. One with anger, one with understanding, and another with silence. Jacobs writes some of the best dialogue of the year here, as each line gets deeper and deeper into the souls of each character. And as the film goes on, not only are we presented with the differences between each character, but also the differences in how they saw and experienced their father.

As we spend more and more time with these sisters, the more engrossed we become. We hook onto every word and every possible meaning behind every moment. It gets to the point where, like them, we begin to feel claustrophobic in its apartment setting. The only moments of reprieve we get are with Rachel, as she sits outside on a bench and smokes weed. This is something she can’t do freely in her home anymore because now Katie has made this house her own, coming in like a mother hen ruling the roost. Among all of Katie’s criticisms, mainly focused on her view that Rachel isn’t helping out, she forgets that the one person who was there all along for their father was Rachel. While Christina and Katie were off living their lives with their husbands and children, Rachel was there helping their father to the bathroom or cutting up food for him. It’s been a heavy load for Rachel to carry. Now, while Christina and Katie sit inside their father’s bedroom with him, Rachel stays in the doorway, but a tear falls all the same.

The film’s leads capture grief in very different ways and also capture what that emotion can do to people, good and bad. Both Coon and Olsen feel like they’re desperately trying to hold it together, but are on the verge of a breakdown. The apartment feels like it’s sitting on dynamite, and Katie has the match to light the fuse. When Katie does, Olsen as Christina lets out the biggest roar of anger, jolting her sisters and the audience to attention. Lyonne, silently through all of this, carries her emotions on her face, mainly fear, sadness, and exhaustion. Eventually, she breaks our hearts when she breaks the silence, and Coon and Olsen mend our hearts back together again when they drive connection with acceptance and apology.

Jacobs finds so much joy in a time in one’s life that’s so full of sadness. At first, a father’s three daughters are together but don’t really want to be. Emotions escalate and tensions rise, and you wonder if they’ll ever get along. They try for the sake of this moment, but you become fully invested in seeing them heal together and grow closer. There’s so much beauty and complexity in the dynamic that is created here, especially as they reflect on the memories that tie them together. Through this, they begin to reflect on their own mortality and the memories they will leave behind for others to reminisce on. The film is not only about grieving over parents but also hinges on our own existence and the weight that will exist in our absence. We will also have a favorite chair that will one day sit empty with our memory, but who will be there in the end when it’s our turn?

His Three Daughters is now on Netflix.