Movie Review: ‘His Three Daughters’ on Netflix Is Character Acting Tour-de-Force

In another example of movies better than their streaming releases, we have Azazel Jacobs’ family drama His Three Daughters. Added to Netflix last month, only half a month after a brief theatrical engagement and a whole year after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.

This is a traditional family drama which harkens back to the mid-budget type of filmmaking that existed in between blockbusters and independent film back in the day. It’s three very different sisters in one apartment for 104 minutes, forced to come to terms with each other.

That one apartment is in modern-day NYC, where Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) lives with her father, Vincent (Jay O. Sanders). Katie (Carrie Coon) and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) are visiting on short notice as their dad is terminally ill and could die any day now. Jovan Adepo appears as Rachel’s supportive boyfriend.

All three siblings are estranged for various reasons, such as Christina living farthest away and Rachel being the least similar to the other two. With Vincent’s first wife, the mother of Katie and Christina, and his second wife, Rachel’s mother, both already passed, the three are forced to grieve and acknowledge their prolonged issues and tension.

His Three Daughters is not only for people who enjoy family dramas, but also people who enjoy theatre, since this is essentially a play caught on camera. For some, this is seen as “boring” and stagey. But to others, it’s a tour-de-force for acting, especially when your performers consist of some of the best character actresses currently working in entertainment.

Each lady is well cast, with Olsen as the caring and nurturing sister with her own, new family back home; Coon as the prickly, uptight sister; and Lyonne as the ‘burn out’ who spends most of her time getting high, watching TV and making money through betting.

Jacobs is seemingly the most recent male filmmaker to be fascinated by the chemistry between sisters as we’ve seen in the past from Woody Allen with both Interiors (1978) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Pedro Almodóvar through Volver (2006). This theme can even be traced back to Louisa May Alcott’s classic 1868 novel Little Women, naturally.

These are my kind of stories, so even if His Three Daughters isn’t the most original picture, it works for me. If you’re interested in quaint, introspective pieces on human relationships, this might be your thing too — if it doesn’t hit too close to home.