geezer cinema: his three daughters (azazel jacobs, 2023)

As I sat down to write this, David Fear at Rolling Stone dropped his list of the 20 Best Movies of 2024, and His Three Daughters was #1. That's not happening with me, but I admit the film has grown on me since I watched it. It improves upon reflection, and it's pretty good in the actual watching. It's largely a chamber piece, so much so that I wondered if it was based on a play. But Azazel Jacobs, who wrote, directed, produced, and edited the film, makes full use of the primary set, a New York City apartment. We get to know all of the rooms, including one bedroom where the father of the three daughters lies under hospice care ... we never enter the room, but the sounds of the medical equipment are ever-present, an effective reminder that dad is there.

Jacobs apparently wrote the script with the three actresses in mind (Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen), and then gave them the dialogue to shine. I wanted to watch this from the moment I learned of the cast. They are all varying levels of favorites of mine, Coon for The Leftovers, Lyonne for everything, Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene. They work together perfectly as believable sisters, just this side of estranged, who come together to watch their father die. Believable, yet Jacobs does not write them as predictable, and combined with the skills of the actors and the concise setting, you feel intimately involved with these people. None of them are ingratiating at first glance ... or second or third glance, for that matter. Jacobs never makes the mistake of giving any of the sisters a saintly sheen, and while you might find yourself rooting for one or another (I was partial to Lyonne), the flaws of all are apparent. But eventually, they get past those flaws ... the women don't turn perfect, but by the end of the film, they accept each other, and accept themselves. This was my first Azazel Jacobs film, and I was impressed.