The implacable tone of an Azazel Jacobs film – comedies tinged with melancholy, where moods swing inconsistently and dollops of surreality pierce the heightened exterior – is a very difficult balancing act. So difficult, in fact, one could fault Jacobs even for trying. His features often lay somewhere between comedy and drama, but don’t feel enough like either to ever really be effective. His latest film, His Three Daughters, has a little bit of that same gangly-ness, but it’s easily the best execution of his whole deal. It helps that the film stars three great actors in Natasha Lyonne, Carrie Coon, and Elizabeth Olsen, three performers whose vast differences only strengthens the movie’s central premise: an intimate chamber drama about a complicated family.
Lyonne, Coon, and Olsen play the eponymous three daughters. Their father, Vinnie, is in hospice care, very near death after long term illness. He lives in a shockingly cheap NYC apartment with Rachel (Lyonne), a pothead slacker whose main source of income is sports gambling. Despite her slovenly lifestyle, she’s been the main caretaker for Vinnie for several years. As his condition progresses past her abilities, Katie (Coon) and Christina (Olsen) move into the apartment temporarily to make sure they’re present when Vinnie passes on. At this point, he never leaves his room and spends his time in and out of consciousness – mostly out. All of the film’s conflict takes place outside his room, the beeps and whirs of various medical apparatuses setting the tempo for the sisters’ tense exchanges.
While Rachel lives alone with her father, both Katie and Christina are married with families. Christina moved out of state, but Katie still lives in Brooklyn. Regardless, neither ever managed the closeness that Rachel achieved with Vinnie. Their presence now is as much a final goodbye as it is a hail mary attempt at scrounging up a sentimentality that may have never been there. Christina is a Grateful Dead superfan whose days of drug use are behind her but her love of the music stays the same. Her calm docility often makes it easy for Katie and Rachel to take her for granted. Katie is a hissing radiator of resentment, immediately annoyed by Rachel’s lifestyle, and doing little to hide her frustrations. Her tendency to fixate is exacerbated by Rachel’s failure to get Vinnie to sign a “Do Not Resuscitate” before he became too ill to do so.
The apartment lease is under Rachel’s name, as well as Vinnie’s, one of many things that causes a latent irritability between the three of them. With Katie and Rachel, the fireworks are immediate, their conversations frequently descending into one-sided arguments: Katie lambasts Rachel for how she does things and then Rachel shuts down and goes into her room. It’s no surprise when Katie mentions a similarly combustible relationship with her teenage daughter. As the sibling dynamic is further revealed, the source of the tensions becomes clearer. It’s one of the better parts of Jacobs’s script, the way he ladles out information about their concurrent but very different upbringings. It’s difficult, on its face, to see how these three women could be sisters, but as His Three Daughters proceeds, we figure out why.
As you may expect, the movie becomes quite weepy in its second half, the waning days of Vinnie’s life bringing out first tempestuous arguments between the sisters before eventually leading to a reconciliation. If the fighting in the first half feels over the top, then the coming together in the second half feels equally as convenient. But the performances from all three actors really helps Jacobs earn these moments. The sentimentality is unavoidable but I think the movie is smart enough to unfurl it naturally. In all its awkwardness, His Three Daughters does reach emotional highs by honestly and accurately handling complex feelings about grief and family.
Jacobs’s greatest achievement is the way he weaves the three performances together, each actor playing to their strengths while still leaving room for each other to fit into the story. Coon, known for her stern intensity, doesn’t shy away from Katie’s harder edges, leaning into the judgmental harshness while still showing the brutal insecurity. Olsen, an actor I always admire (especially outside of Marvel), is wonderful as Christina, a cheerful but misunderstood young mother trying desperately to mend the gap between her two sisters. It’s Lyonne who will surprise you the most. Her naughty boy charm is on display, but for Rachel it’s a coping mechanism, not a performance trick. Jacobs allows Lyonne to explore depths previously uncharted, giving Rachel the movie’s most fulfilling emotional arc.
This a movie about family, a subject matter I’m always going to be partial to. The resentments that come with being connected to someone for life are the root of some of our greatest dramas. His Three Daughters doesn’t exactly tread new ground, but it does have some flair. The film’s ending, which I’ll refrain from revealing, will surprise you in how it earns your tears. In this film, it’s much easier to forgive Jacobs’s storytelling ticks, his irritating mandate to split the atom between twee and unpleasant. Even in his less successful films, he’s always been a strong director of actors, and with a trio as strong as he has here, it’s no wonder the film is as much of a success.
Written and Directed by Azazel Jacobs