Death isn鈥檛 like it is in the movies, a character explains in 鈥� 鈥� Elizabeth Olsen鈥檚 Christina is telling her sisters, Katie (Carrie Coon) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), a story about their father, who became particularly agitated one evening while watching a movie on television in the aftermath of his wife鈥檚 passing.
It鈥檚 not exactly a fun memory, or present, for any of them. This is, after all, also a movie about death.
The three women have gathered in their father鈥檚 small New York apartment for his final days. He鈥檚 barely conscious, confined to a room that they take shifts monitoring as they wait out this agonizingly unspecific clock. But even absent the stresses of hospice, tensions would be high for Christina, Katie and Rachel, estranged and almost strangers who are about to lose the one thread still binding them. Taken together, it鈥檚 a pressure cooker and a wonderful showcase for three talented actors.
Writer-director Azazel Jacobs has scripted and filmed 鈥淗is Three Daughters,鈥� streaming Friday on Netflix, like a play. The dialogue often sounds more scripted than conversational (except for Lyonne, who makes everything sound her own); the locations are confined essentially to a handful of rooms in the apartment, with the communal courtyard providing the tiniest bit of breathing room.
Jacobs drops the audience into the middle of things, dolling out background and information slowly and purposefully. Coon鈥檚 Katie gets the first word, a monologue really, about the state of things as she sees it and how this is going to work. She鈥檚 the eldest, a type-A ball of anxiety, the mother of a difficult teenage daughter and the type of person who can barely conceal either disappointment or deep resentment. Katie also lives in Brooklyn, not far from her father, but rarely ever visited. Caretaking duties were left to Lyonne鈥檚 Rachel, an unemployed stoner who never left home, likes to bet on football games and is poised to inherit the apartment 鈥� to the not-so-subtle resentment of her sisters. The youngest is Christina, a head-in-the-clouds, conflict averse yogi and Grateful Dead follower who lives across the country and has had to leave her 3-year-old for the first time.
Jacobs is unafraid of allowing both drama and humor to coexist, to seep into moments unexpectedly. There is an undeniable absurdity to the act of writing an obituary for a loved one in a fraught time like hospice that actually captures a life and a person and doesn鈥檛 sound like a laundry list of biographical facts and positive attributes. Add to that the fact that Katie is also frantically trying to get a medical professional to the apartment to witness a DNR order. The women are torn in premature grief, wanting him to stay alive but also go quickly.
They鈥檙e all richly drawn and perfectly mysterious too, even to themselves; Jacobs too smart and attuned to how humans are to give anyone a simple, straightforward explanation. Everyone is making assumptions about others 鈥� many of them are wrong, or, at the very least misguided. Coon, with her booming, theatrical voice, is particularly suited playing this slightly terrifying, massively judgmental perfectionist. Lyonne, so good at cool deflection, gets to use that otherworldliness to hit a different kind of note: quiet heartbreak. And Olsen, playing a character, really shines in her non-verbal choices: A reaction, a moment alone that she doesn鈥檛 know is being observed. It won鈥檛 be surprising if any or all get some recognition this awards season (unfortunately in a system that is uniquely ill-equipped to fete small ensembles with three leads).
There are some movies that die quiet deaths on streaming-first (this did receive a bit of a theatrical run), but 鈥淗is Three Daughters鈥� is one that seems right on Netflix just for its ability to reach a larger audience than it would stand a chance to at the multiplex. It鈥檚 never not riveting watching it all unfold, even with the temptation of the phone nearby. Whether you make it a solo viewing experience or a group one might have everything to do with your own relationship with family members.
And to that initial indictment about movies not getting death right? It鈥檚 still probably true. But movies like 鈥淗is Three Daughters鈥� might help us all make a little bit more sense of the inevitable.
鈥淗is Three Daughters,鈥� a Netflix release streaming Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 鈥渓anguage and drug use.鈥� Running time: 101 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press
