His Three Daughters Review: Skillfully Transparent

Azazel Jacobs’ calm and contained family drama His Three Daughters will break your heart and gently glue its pieces back together.

In the final days before their father’s imminent passing, three sisters reunite under his roof to say their final goodbyes but have to endure each other’s company until the time arrives. Household names Natasha Lyonne (Irresistible, Russian Doll), Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision, Love & Death), and Carrie Coon (Gone Girl, The Nest) deliver colorful portrayals of three women who are healing from past regrets, coming to terms with the present, and preparing for an uncertain future, in which they might only have each other.

The remarkably straightforward premise, unfolding inside the walls of a claustrophobic New York City apartment, ironically gives a lot of room for development and resonance with the experiences of this estranged family, going through an inevitable part of life no one is ever ready for. This uncluttered and quiet storytelling allows the emotional beats of the story to land that much heavier when they’re given the time and space to be absorbed. His Three Daughters’ simplicity makes for poignancy. The only complicated part of this film is its characters, and that is what makes all the difference.

The three lead performances deserve to be acknowledged individually for the intricacy and entirely separate sense of sincerity each actress manages to bring to the dinner table. Carrie Coon is Katie, the more pedantic and demanding of the siblings, dealing with her own insecurities and a teenage daughter at home. Elizabeth Olsen embodies a calmer and meditative presence as the struggling mediator of the conflicts in the apartment while missing her own homelife as she is separated from her little one for the first time. Natasha Lyonne commands the screen with her portrayal of the stoner sister Rachel, who lives with and takes care of their father while the others are far away.

In a nutshell, the experience of His Three Daughters is essentially watching three actresses at the top of their game, exercising their acting muscles to perfection. It’s an absolute delight to watch their rendering of a sister trio that cannot be more divided but have to find their way back to each other when they’re faced with their own versions of grief, love, and resentment. 

Writer-director Azazel Jacobs builds the skeletons of these characters with specific and nuanced dialogue that is not overdramatized to please anybody. The script roots itself deep in realism, especially in the way it talks about and depicts death. 

There isn’t a climactic scene towards the end with a huge realization that the sisters love each other and will forever stay connected, and they’re a family. Instead, we see that in small, inconsequential at first glance moments throughout the entire runtime. The substance and the beauty of the family dynamics lie in those flashes of ordinary life. There isn’t a huge emotional build-up to the passing of the father or a cathartic release of sadness that leaves audiences hollow inside, because it feels like the way it would happen in real life—with quietness and absence.

There is only one point at which the consistent tone of authenticity gets invaded by a reality-transgressing monologue scene that serves as a confession of fatherly love. It might be yet another display of impressive acting chops, but the necessity of the scene is debatable within the framework of everything preceding it. While it may work as just another touching moment for some viewers, I find its contribution to the film’s candor to be unrequired as it only makes points we have already driven home and undermines the rest of the screenplay’s subtlety.

Azazel Jacobs delivers a genuine and deceivingly simple story that can bring out many tears and smiles. His Three Daughters comes alive thanks to masterful writing and honest performances that are not over the top and will not leave you desensitized by the end.

His Three Daughters is now available to watch on Netflix.