It’s All Relative
Directed by Azazel Jacobs
Starring Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne
Released September 20th, 2024
Rated R
Written, produced, edited, and directed by Azazel Jacobs, His Three Daughters is an intimate film exploring the emotional journey of three very different women who are each at different stages of their lives. The sisters must sort out their collective emotional baggage with each other as they swim through the uncertainty of end-of-life decisions for their ailing father, who is receiving hospice care at his New York apartment.
The eldest daughter, Katie (Carrie Coon), lives across town, and comes into the apartment like a hurricane, a no-nonsense woman who demands excellence from others and as a result is constantly disappointed. She wants to get through this sad situation as quickly as possible and gets easily frustrated with the actions of her siblings. This character reminded me a bit of my eldest sister.
The middle daughter, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), is a bit spacey. She does yoga and is fond of singing “Scarlet Begonias” by the Grateful Dead and insists that her years following the band was not because of the drug scene. She lives out of state with her partner and their young child, and being the middle sister spends a lot of her time acting as peacekeeper between her siblings. This character reminded me of two of my sisters mashed together.
The youngest daughter Rachel (Lyonne) still lives at home with her father. Rachel is a pothead, always smoking and watching sports, betting on the games in lieu of a real job. Now she finds herself experiencing the stress of her older sisters coming back to their New York home that she never left. It’s obvious that she’s using drugs to mask the pain she’s feeling as her father is dying, but when her siblings ask her if she is doing okay, she knows their query is a judgmental one, not one honestly asking if she needs help. This character reminded me a bit of myself, and my own journey through addiction.
After finding success at a young age in films like But I’m a Cheerleader and Slums of Beverly Hills, Natasha Lyonne took time out from her career to sort out personal issues and has experienced a welcome and deserved career resurgence with the critically acclaimed television shows Russian Doll and Poker Face.Lyonne brings Rachel to life with a lived-in feeling that conveys years of heartache mostly through body language. Known for her work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wanda Maximoff, it’s wonderful watching Elizabeth Olsen in a small-budget drama, an arena in which she excels. I loved her work in Martha Marcy May Marlene, and here Olsen proves capable of showing different sides of her character Christina, hinting at a pain underneath her constant middle child peacekeeping. As engaging as Olsen and Lyonne are, Carrie Coon is operating on another level entirely. If you’ve seen her in The Leftovers, Gone Girl, or The Nest, then you know that she’s the real deal. Her performance as Katie will make you upset, it will make you empathize with her, make you laugh, and make you uncomfortable. All of the performances in the film are grand, but Coon puts on an acting master class.
This is a dialogue-heavy film where most everyone gets a chance to shine, including the hospice workers (Rudy Galvan and Jasmine Bracey), Rachel’s boyfriend Benjy (Jovan Adepo), and even the sister’s father Vincent (Jay O. Sanders). Azazel Jacob’s editing choices are inspired, making the most of small spaces and cutting between performances with precision and purpose. Though it is a specific story about these specific people, His Three Daughters is chock full of relatable moments. You will recognize yourself and your family in these characters. Depending on your life experience, some sequences may hit a little too close to home. From the opening scene I was enraptured by the tense and complicated interpersonal relationships on display, but it was the conclusion of the film that will stick with me. That I found the film so moving speaks to how successfully I believe it navigates such rocky emotional terrain.
His Three Daughters is about re-contextualizing what family means in the face of dealing with inescapable shared grief, and yet the movie can be surprisingly funny at times! Jacobs has written a great script, and reportedly he wrote it with these three actors in mind. How cool that we are now able to see on screen what he saw in his head while he was writing the script. Coon, Olsen, and Lyonne had about a week together to rehearse before the three-week shoot began. They spent some of that time figuring out a specific cadence of speech, a rhythm they would share as real sisters would. With only a few locations and a small cast, perhaps His Three Daughters will one day be adapted for the stage. It would be interesting to see other actors playing these parts, to see what they would keep, what they would drop, and what they would add to each character. For now, I cannot imagine anyone doing better than the company here.