If you're worried about someone not dying quickly enough, you can just talk about American football and that will take years off their life. There are definitely better lessons to learn from His Three Daughters too but that'll be up to you to discover when you wish to inhabit the spaces of a Brooklyn apartment. Speaking of, that is exactly where we meet the titular daughters: Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), a chipper mom of a small child who's travelled back to New York City from another side of the country; Katie (Carrie Coon), an exacting mom of a teenager who lives nearby; and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), a shiftless stoner who still lives in said apartment with the trio's dad Vincent (Jay O. Sanders). The three kids have reconvened because Vincent's health has deteriorated and they want to be there with him in his final few days.
Writer-director-editor Azazel Jacobs presents the film pretty much as a chamber drama as we rarely leave the apartment, and that is only to have a weed break outside with Rachel, which in itself introduces an amusing recurring bit with a building manager. Otherwise, the restrictions and design of the story offers a juicy, dialogue-heavy showcase for the three leads and fortunately that is hands down the project's biggest strength. Olsen tackles charmingly Christina's effusive and warm nature in this family dynamic, Coon counterbalances that with Katie's more cynical approach to both the inevitable death and the daughter's connection with each other, whilst Lyonne floats in and out of scenes as an outsider of sorts, hiding some of Rachel's embarrassment and genuine fear of being alone, but providing the funny zingers in order to alleviate the tensions.
Those tensions arise from a really strong perceptiveness on Jacobs' part when it comes to these specific women, whether that is the biological divide of Rachel having a different mom, how each of them is coping with the basic idea of losing their dad very soon, or how they view parenting (or not wanting to be a parent at all in Rachel's case) in their own lives. All these threads create natural conflicts, none that are overblown either which would be an easy path to take if this was a lesser movie and script. While the writing explores melancholy and different stages of grief and acceptance, there's also a manifestation of unity and sincere care towards the other siblings. It's not always mindful—when it comes from Katie especially—because the lives that the women have lived have created a considerable amount of distance in years prior, but the story seems to ultimately be about reconnecting at the very end of the film.
Jacobs and his collaborators don't say their farewells with full conviction since one artistic swing in the last 15 minutes feels too theatrical and preposterous, making you wonder if this was pitched as a play first and foremost, and it simply didn't end up working in a cinematic form. Nevertheless, Olsen, Coon and Lyonne are all uniformly excellent in these layered, fascinating roles, which makes for a quite moving portrait of a difficult chapter in the characters' lives. This homecoming was worth all the drama and heartache, I would say.
Smileys: Acting, screenplay, characterisation
Frowneys: Nothing too disappointing
An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but not the grim reaper.
4.0/5
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