Few moments in life are as painful as those stationary ones between two inevitable points. For His Three Daughters (2024), a family gathers for the final days of their father’s life. He’s on hospice care and going through the typical highs and lows that come with it. There’s the not emergency emergencies where everybody panics. There’s the sleepless nights of waiting overhead, trying to determine how much longer there will be. When death is so prominent in the imagination, it’s hard for life to feel real. Even the living are shackled to the dread of waiting around for relief. Maybe it’s the relief of having that final meaningful moment. Maybe it’s something more inevitable.
Either way, there’s a self-awareness that hangs over the titular daughters as they gather for support. Each originate form different times in the father’s (Jay O. Sanders) life and have little in common. There’s the anal-retentive Katie (Carrie Coon) who spends her time going back and forth between managing everyone’s lives and taking phone calls to arrange plans. She becomes annoyed at second-youngest Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) for filling the fridge with spoiled food. Rachel is a compulsive smoker and gambler who passes the time watching games with the hope that some greater miracle will arrive. Meanwhile, the kindhearted and youngest Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) seems helpless. She’s the least attached to the situation and spends most of the time trying to people please while keeping her post-marriage family up to date on everything.
On any given day, surviving family is difficult. Egos are bound to rise. Everyone knows the buttons to press to start arguments and throw the décor into disarray. It is made worse when forced to place alongside the difficult emotions that arise from overthinking. Death is nothing if not a realization of how little control one has. Whether it’s Katie attempting to regain it through writing an obituary or Rachel distracting herself with greater uncertainty, there’s recognition of everyone passing the time, simply waiting. Nothing happens for so long that it aches at their soul. Distractions can only happen so long before they’re reminded of the raw nerve. In an effort to make the transition peaceful, it reveals something chaotic and despairing. When you’re spending it with people you’re not terribly close to, what is the greater meaning?
With exception to a few exterior scenes, His Three Daughters operates like a chamber piece where everyone enters the domicile overlooking a city street. The recognition of life carrying on only worsens the feeling of isolation that comes with grieving. Even as caretakers and boyfriends emerge for support, there’s a sense of futility underneath that everything will collapse eventually. It adds to the existentialism of a confined space. Director Azazel Jacobs does a great job of conveying the sense of escape that lies just outside. For as much as it’s a place for Katie to ostracize Rachel while she smokes, it’s a chance to remove oneself from the constant reminder of stagnation. Even as she laughs on a park bench with a security guard (Jose Febus), she is still reminded of what lies inside. She will return to a morose environment where death overshadows the joy their father brought them.
It’s the inhale waiting for one last exhale. The tension of frustrations hidden underneath the surface are perfectly captured by the three actresses. Lyonne gets to have the most fun as she not only gets the freedom of wandering the city, but she turns her sarcastic wit into a source of comfort. Certain remarks may carry an acidic nature, but there is a sense of love that exists within her. Every time she turns her eyes to a screen to collect scores is a chance to be at peace. Otherwise, it’s the manic lack of focus that drives her to deal with a sister who seems disappointed that she’s still an addict that has an immature view of the world. It’s a fact made more amusing when realizing that Christina is the one who not only has the best knowledge of Grateful Dead’s catalog, but she took his old shirt as a memento.
Despite the constant arguing that travels throughout this story, it’s all balanced with Jacobs’ fantastic script. There is a pulsation akin to a heart monitor that plays throughout. The way he frames the hallway in relation to the living room often shows the divide within close proximities. For Katie, escape isn’t that far away. Coon gives her a lot of insular structure, encouraging the audience to empathize with feelings unexpressed. The disillusionment that comes with losing control overwhelms her to the point that all she can do is project anger onto others. In an effort to make her father’s final days peaceful, she has no choice but to provide civility. She stares in frustration when people don’t grieve like her. She hates that the hospice care isn’t as perfect as it’s never been. What’s brilliant about her role is how scenes exist as acts of implosion. Coon feels smaller by the end, as if certain conflicts – no matter how tertiary - have worn her down.
Outside of any criticism regarding the larger accuracy of hospice care, Jacobs seems more drawn to the emotional drive of this interim. As someone who has witnessed family in this environment, sometimes for years, it’s not a great sight. It’s the equivalent of having to mix personal engagements with more contractual realities. Are the nurses being ethical? Is it worth not signing a DNR form? More importantly, is it a great idea to think of someone in a past tense while they’re still breathing? The conflicts arise, especially as it becomes clear that shaking them awake is impossible. Still, the hope of miracles overwhelm. The need for life to be like it was for decades is too comforting to just let go. There’s a fight to believe that loved ones will magically get better and live forever. There is a need to recognize the selfishness of this act and an even more difficult acceptance that it’s natural. Fearing the loss of control is instinctual in every human. Grieving will be a lengthy journey. The question is do you want to risk prolonging it at the hands of making a loved one suffer more.
Everyone who watches His Three Daughters will approach it with their own complications. For those who have personal experience with the system, there’s a good chance that small moments will resonate more. Even as Jacobs considers delving more into light magical realism, he does so with empathy. There is that need to have a greater sense of humanity within the characters, so the final act’s abrupt shift is far from novelty. If anything, it is the heart-wrenching denouement that comes from lengthy bedsitting. It’s the recognition that the sacrifice was not in vain. If anything, it was a chance to try and make sense of life. Maybe not his and maybe not theirs, but the value of life as a greater concept.
Very few films have managed to capture such a universal emotion so vividly. Not since Manchester By the Sea (2016) has someone depicted the complications of life existing alongside death. The desire to distance from a world that frivolously spins shows how isolating death can be. What His Three Daughters does best is manage to revel in the most painful part of that process without resorting to a dreadful tone. For as much pain that resonates through every second, Jacobs recognizes that humans are more complicated. There are arguments, but there’s also the fact that life has odd ways of coping. Sometimes it’s offhand remarks or trivial conversations. Even if death exists somewhere in the background, there is the optimism that shines brightest. Life will move on. There will come a day when their father is something more than a suffering soul. The joy will come back. Memories will flourish. The only question is how.
His Three Daughters is one of those stories that seems simple on the surface, but only helps to allow the humanity to shine through. Certain moments become cyclical, reflecting small growth as the characters learn to appreciate each other’s company. Thanks to a stellar cast, they’re able to make something as simple as a half-open door into one of the most emotional visuals of the year. The audience doesn’t actually see the bed their father is in. Instead, it’s a chance to hear them give small comforting conversations. Rachel keeps him posted on football scores. Whether or not he’s coherent is unknown. That’s exactly how it feels sometimes. One would like to think that they’re merely sleeping, though maybe something greater is happening. The fear is watching without any way to know for sure. Still, they speak with the hopes that something breaks through if for no other reason than it’ll make all this waiting around mean something.
The difficulty with existing in that middle ground is not knowing for sure. However, His Three Daughters is as much a chance to think about the loved ones who are dying as it is a chance to appreciate those still with us. It’s unclear what will happen in the years ahead for these three, but Jacobs’ direction suggests that their bond has become stronger. Ironically, he wasn’t the only one not able to hear them speaking at the start of the story. The major difference is that by the end, through all the sibling rivalries, they have learned to dedicate an ear to those hurting around them. They may have good and bad days ahead but, as their lives shift back towards the living, they won’t be as lonely as they once thought.
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