Grief destroys the self image we have built for ourselves. It’s merciless and relentless. It brings down the defenses that we build within ourselves, which often serve as an easy way to define us as mother, daughter, or sister. And that’s very interesting for Azazel Jacob’s “His Three Daughters” self-describes rather well. At the beginning, everything culminates around defining its titular characters, but for the subsequent 100 minutes the focus shifts to the characters and how those definitions fall short. It is a fact that they are daughters and sisters (two of whom are mothers), but as the date of their father’s death draws closer, they come to terms with the intricacy of human emotion, behavior, and comprehension. Thanks to the execution of three of the best performances in a very long time and delicately written script by Jacobs himself, this is one of the greatest films of the year. It is a film that moves me to such a degree I sometimes become tearful just imagining certain parts of it. It is so much more than a powerhouse act. It is a film centered around the unmistakable truth that makes the weakest of us tremble.
In the beginning scene, we are presented with Katie (Carrie Coon), Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne). Katie has her arms folded a common recurring theme by Coon and Jacobs to depict how cut off this ever scheming individual is from everyone else around her and is speaking vehemently about the current issue which is that her father Vincent (Jay O. Sanders) is dying and does not have a DNR. That is all she can do at this particular point in time. She is attempting to do damage control by outlining a series of actionable tasks that she can manage. (I tend to be too much like that.) Sister Christina is more embracing and has a gentler demeanor as she gazes towards the hallway where her father is resting. To start, Rachel does seem unkempt, mostly just wanting to get stoned and check on her ongoing sports bets rather than converse with either of them.
Through the use of natural dialogue, Jacobs reveals to us so much about these women. It is revealed that Katie is fighting with a teenage daughter, Christina used to be a Grateful Dead fan (and perhaps wishes that she was still one), and Rachel has been caring for her Father by living with him. In these complex roles, Coon, Olsen, and Lyonne give the best performances of their careers, as they come to life on the screen thanks to Jacobs’s keen, character-based dialogue. All three have been unmoored by grief, not simply from what they’re about to lose, but also from how they envision this situation reflecting back to themselves. Jacobs deftly steers clear from melodrama which would seek to provoke pity or sadness while even enhancing a strain of sharp humor that accompanies the potential banality. From that very first scene, we believe Katie, Christina and Rachel are real people, hurling insults and truths at each other in a manner that is so much more magnificent and pleasing to watch than the greatest theater-seeing that it is almost completely set in Vincent/Rachel’s apartment, it somewhat seems as though it was designed to be a theatrical piece.
In addition, Jacobs effectively employs the language of the cinema. The sound design features will always be overlooked. Like the monotonous beeping of the machines in the distance that keeps daddy up at night, or the regular passing of the NYC subway train that runs alongside the apartment block. These three daughters are losing their father while in the middle of their daily routines.
It is carefully crafted, though. From the lurking menace the hallway seems to envelop into, especially on Rachel who seems the most hesitant to spend time with ailing father, to the way the lighting adjust just so in a final act sequence that has already generated debates. For reasons that I so wish to explain but cannot without spoiling it. One of the characters not only set up a couple scenes ahead, but it is quite literally what I hope to be the closing scene that is so full of life defining regrets.
To say that there is an “end” in the story His Three Daughters does not very much give a lot of information about the storyline. It’s a film that speaks of death. It’s a film that deals with something most of us will one day have to face: Bidding farewell to our loved ones. As people say, you seem to change after losing your loved ones. “His Three Daughters” proposes that such a change is not the result of loss alone, but the transcendence which accompanies loss. And it is not that bidding farewell transforms a person as much as it is about closing a door with finality on a person one cares for. And perhaps, just perhaps, the person you have always been, in their eyes.
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