Azazel Jacobs’ quietly moving chamber piece, His Three Daughters, begins with a monologue that will set the cadence of the film. Katie (Carrie Coon) is the oldest of three sisters who have convened in their dying father’s (Jay O. Sanders) New York apartment to help him through his final days. Katie is asking that she and her younger sister Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) set their differences aside and concentrate on their father. Her tone is stilted, as she isn’t really asking, but making a half-hearted attempt to control the situation. Katie does not want to be there and her body language and patronizing attitude speak volumes. The scene is almost Bergmanesque in the way Katie is framed against an empty white wall as she is introduced as a person who is putting out a false, controlled, emotion; a trait she shares with her two sisters.

Rachel agrees just to placate Katie and get through it all. The two seem to have never had a good relationship and there is resentment that has bled into their adult lives. Rachel still lives at home with her father, which causes Katie to cast her as a parasite with no ambition. Sitting in the room taking this all in is the third sister, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), who has come from the West Coast and puts on a positive facade as she tries to steer the conversation away from Katie and Rachel’s issues. 

His Three Daughters is a film about people who turn away from their actual feelings. Katie, Rachel, and Christina aren’t going to end the film laughing and dancing to a pop song from the 60s while everything is set right. There is an incurable animosity between them and their grievances have existed since childhood. Jacobs’s screenplay exudes their many emotions through precise dialogue and a welcome absence of histrionics. His characters are barely able to communicate with one another and hold their emotions at bay. It is what the sisters don’t say that will hit the hardest.

Coon, Olsen, and especially Lyonne do some of the finest work of their careers. On surface levels, the characters could be defined as ”the bitchy one” (Katie), “The flighty one” (Christina), and “the pothead” (Rachel), but that doesn’t scratch the surface of the depth found in Jacobs’ screenplay and in the performances of the three actresses. 

Each sister is an emotional puzzle and any simplistic attempt to define them would be futile. As the film begins with the three trying to maintain some semblance of peace until their father dies, it continues on with the women taking stock of their current lives and a future without their last surviving parent. 

Katie is not the take-charge persona she pretends (or wants) to be. On her phone calls to her teen daughter, it is revealed that Katie cannot control her; another crack in her exterior. Christina does yoga and has sweet phone calls to her young daughter every day, but her happy tone and relaxed demeanor seem to be more of an emotional costume. Her breezy ways cannot mask the pain in her eyes. 

Rachel has been by her father’s side this whole time. For her sisters to come in and take charge is insulting, as they are too self-involved and cannot see how Rachel has been the sole caretaker of their father. To stay out of their way, she he mostly stays in her room watching sports (Rachel makes a small living betting on games) and smoking pot. The only time the film leaves the apartment is when Rachel goes outside to smoke in the courtyard, although she is constantly scolded by the building’s security guard.

Katie, Cristina,and Rachel are the types of well-crafted roles for women found in the films of Paul Mazursky, Woody Allen, and the aforementioned Ingmar Bergman. These filmmakers knew how to write honestly about the human condition and crafted their female characters with an intelligence and grace rarely found in the screenplays of today. Azazel Jacob’s work here can find a seat at the table alongside these great filmmakers.

Stylistically, the film is patient yet profound. Sam Levy’s camera is mostly still, but Jacobs and his cinematographer occasionally move through the apartment, slowly focusing on the quiet hallways and darkened rooms. The relationship between the sisters is defined by the cold blank walls that serve as a barrier between them; the quiet of the surroundings embodying the unspoken emotions of all three. 

This is a strong film that takes a big risk in its final act. A moment comes that is, at first, jarring, but it is a scene that morphs into something quite beautiful and speaks to what is perceived and what is the reality of losing a loved one. To end the film in such a way is tricky, but it works and leaves the audience with something quite moving.

The screenplay’s acute awareness of emotion and the director’s desire to portray grief and relationships honestly gives the film a unique wisdom regarding familial connection. A heartbreaking work of emotional truths, His Three Daughters is as sincere as a film can be.

His Three Daughters

Written and Directed by Azazel Jacobs

Starring Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne, Jay O. Sanders, Jovan Adepo

R, 101 Minutes, Netflix, Animal Pictures, Case Study Films