There is something to be said for tragedy bringing people together, and His Three Daughters, premiering at TIFF 2023, perfectly examines this phenomenon. TIFF brought a lot of siblings together this year with titles like North Star, Four Daughters, and of course, His Three Daughters, the last of which felt like perfection the second Carrie Coon appeared on screen for her opening monologue. The good news is, things only got better from there, with Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne rounding out the trio of sisters.
Something about Coon playing Katie, the independent, hardened, “take charge” sister, was the ideal choice for His Three Daughters’ cold open. We are introduced to her on the phone, giving a rundown of everything going on. She is staying at her father’s apartment with her sister, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and half-sister Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) as they prepare to say goodbye as he is in hospice care. We get glimpses of what Katie thinks her sisters are going through and a bit of who they are, or rather, who she thinks they are.
“His Three Daughters expertly dissects relationships and assumptions we make about each other.”
His Three Daughters expertly dissects relationships and assumptions we make about each other. The use of monologues is perhaps the best I’ve seen. Usually, when conversations are weighty and generally one-sided, we find ourselves leaning in one character’s favour or another. Each woman has their moment to speak, several actually, and so much is said through the other’s reactions that you are never really sure who to side with. Through these speeches, we also get to look through each daughter’s eyes to see what they see.
Occasionally, through blocking, Director Azazel Jacobs manages to give us a closer look at who each woman is while we are still in the middle of seeing who the sisters think she is. In a scene where Olsen’s character takes a moment to breathe on a chair in the living room, we see her sisters come in and out, commenting on what she is doing and why while never really seeing what she is dealing with. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, taking in the goings on around her, struggling to keep the positive, helpful attitude her sisters expect from her.
We see Natasha Lyonne more through her relationship with her boyfriend. Her sisters paint her to be a freeloader only in it for an apartment, half-assed caring for their dying father. They see someone who won’t go in his room anymore now that they are there, and she’s off the hook, and someone who does the bare minimum to get by. They don’t see the person who has been caring for a dying man, one who took her in when he didn’t have to, entirely alone. They don’t see someone saying goodbye to the only father she ever knew.
“Lyonne’s character does the least talking in His Three Daughters and managed to blow me away.
Lyonne’s character does the least talking in His Three Daughters and managed to blow me away. Of course, she’s still the comedic relief as always, but he brought something so much more than that to the film. To be able to convey that much emotion without pages and pages of dialogue takes something special that not many people have. With her dance between comedy and tragedy, I would be shocked if we didn’t see her name come awards season (if there is one this year).
His Three Daughters turns a series of conversations between three women and manages to build lives for each of them while simultaneously dispelling those stories and peeling back layers until we see who they really are. I can attest that death brings out the worst in people, but it can also be a chance to let people in and see them for who they are, not who you’ve painted them to be. This film explores grief, family and women in a way not many do. His Three Daughters was by far my favourite film at TIFF 2023, and I’m eager to watch it again to see if it hits the same.
