When it becomes clear that their father in hospice care is nearing the end of his life, three sisters move into his apartment to take care of him and be there when he passes. They are three different women with different ways of handling the situation and His Three Daughters shows them clashing as they try to understand one another and cope.
It’s interesting trying to support people going through grief when you are grieving the same thing yourself. There’s the question of how much you should feel, how much you should take on, whether you should ask for help, whether you can ask to be left alone, and much more. The oldest sister, Katie, (Carrie Coon) handles the logistics of their father’s care and mentions in passing that no one has given her space to be anything other than who she feels she has to be. The middle sister, Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), spends most of her time by herself, presumably because it’s all too much for her to handle, but it comes of like she doesn’t care to her sisters. Then, the youngest daughter, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), maintains faux optimism, never complaining and trying to pacify whatever tensions arise. At the end of this, they each have to try and see what the others are going through which allows them to appreciate their relationships more.
The film gives space for each character to express themselves. Many moments of dialogue are more mini-monologues, and this allows us to really hear the character beyond what they are saying. The actresses portray the emotions of their characters amazingly and make our hearts break for them, which was evidenced by the amount of sniffling I heard in the theatre as the film came to a close.
His Three Daughters reminds us that having each other is what really matters, different as we may be.
His Three Daughters is now playing at TIFF ’23. For more information, click here.
