His Three Daughters (2023)
Directed by Azazel Jacobs
I was like Katie (Carrie Coon); anal, embracing the stresses of the world as a means of distraction, yet upset with anyone who gets in my way. To be afraid, really, yet afraid with a purpose. Afraid, and knowing that my calendar is blocked off for the day doing quote unquote adult things, drawing some modicum of illusionary satisfaction in feeling busy and ridiculing those that were idle. And I’ve been like Rachel (Natasha Lyonne); getting high to make the day eke by, content with the little, unlikely victories that the day can afford, knowing full well that I have tomorrow ahead of me to dull with the help of edibles & alcohol & television. But I guess at this stage of my life, the one I’m living now on a Sunday in early September of 2024, I felt most like Christina (Elizabeth Olsen).
Katie, Rachel, and Christina are all in their father’s NYC apartment as they wait out his last days. From the start, you gather things are tense, with no one in their ideal ecosystem. Writer/director Azazel Jacobs draws on the claustrophobia of the smallish apartment unit to fragment the tension, permitting a breath of cool air to wash over the film in routine cycles as we watch Rachel take a breather with a blunt outside from time to time. But what we observe could be left unsaid: all three of the sisters barely know each other and they’ll only truly get to know one another through this shared loss. It didn’t have to be this way, but also, it could only be done this way.
With movies like this, I’m not sure if my experience is even remotely close to what the general populous experiences. See, I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, and their loss, while significant, wouldn’t necessarily impact me in the same way. Instead, I considered the moments in my life where I experienced death, and how all of those spaces have been white spaces. Whether it’s my Polish grandfather who passed and being one of three people of color (myself, my brother, and my father) at the funeral parlor, or being there for a partner, I’ve often felt like an intruder in my observations. I could only remember the moments where my grandparents bemoaned my mother for marrying a brown man, and could not help but feel a permanent stamp of unwelcomeness whenever I entered a space intended to grieve. It’s why a pivotal sequence in Jacobs’ film demonstrates how painful these moments can be, where Rachel’s friend Benji (Jovan Adepo) feels ornamental to the whole process. But it’s not about him and it’s never been about him. It’s the kind of thing I ought to be better at remembering by now.
As Katie and Rachel bicker about whether or not to smoke in the apartment, Christina breathes. She lost her cool for a second but is trying to maintain her composure during this taxing time. She misses her daughter. She misses her husband. But she’s there to put out the fires that her two sisters cause between them. I suppose it’s awfully arrogant of myself to suggest that I’m operating in a state of calm compared to how things used to be but that’s not entirely the point. With Christina, as the film reaches its conclusion, I felt a kinship in the manner in which she handles her grief. There’s no alarm clock for when you’re permitted to start grieving. There’s no aha moment that’s filled with profound meaning. No, like her, I just grieve when I can. I carry on with my life, come to realize that there are people that depend on me, and make sure they’re ok before I have my moment. Call it people-pleasing, but there’s something to it, repeated ad nauseum.
Death happens and with it whatever vestiges of closure one hopes to have are left to your fantasies to conjure up. The film moved me to tears for a litany of reasons. I guess my foremost thought is: what kind of father will I be? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot lately as the reality of fatherhood is becoming increasingly likely. And even more poignantly, His Three Daughters inspired the thought of what kind of father I don’t want to be. There will be no unwelcomeness. That much I know. The rest is up to fate.