How do you communicate death? This is the question posed towards the end of His Three Daughters – a rather audacious move considering that it revolves around the last days of a father whose titular daughters have all gathered to be present for his passing.
Set almost entirely within the apartment that is home to dying Vincent and daughter Rachel, the film captures a palpable sense of claustrophobia. Here, controlling, uptight Katie (Carrie Coon playing the modern-day equivalent of her character from The Gilded Age), emotional Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and slacker Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) are unwillingly thrown together, all with their own personal but conflicting senses of duty to their father.
With its restricted setting and small cast of characters, the film by writer and director Azazel Jacobs, risks feeling stagey at times, as the small dramas play out in the crucible of the apartment. However, the striking camera work, in which the three women are frequently shot in direct, single mid-shots, almost as if they are talking heads in a documentary, creates an uncomfortable sense of isolation.
