Start the week with a film: In ‘His Three Daughters’, rediscovering life while waiting for death

Writer-director Azazel Jacobs has deep feeling for actors, conversations and restricted spaces. The creator of The Lovers (2017) and French Exit (2020) has examined the brittleness of human relationship within homes and the back of cars, with characters who speak their minds, and through blade-sharp dialogue that has rare honesty.

In His Three Daughters, Jacobs assembles three marvellous actresses for a study of family dynamics. Jacobs elevates a familiar set-up – siblings come together after a long gap to attend to their terminally ill father – by paying close attention to what is being said by each of the daughters and how they navigate their New York City apartment.

His Three Daughters is out on Netflix. Although originally a theatrical release, the film’s availability on a streaming platform suits an intimate examination of lives forcibly yoked together by the possibility of death.

The cancer-stricken Vincent is receiving end-of-life care at home. Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), who has been living him, finds herself sharing the spacious apartment with her stepsisters Katie (Carrie Coon) and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen). Although Katie and Christina share a mother, they seem as estranged from each at times as they are with the pot-addicted Rachel.

The dialogue exchanges reveal the passive-aggressive behaviour that afflicts siblings who are too old to be sharing the...

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