On Netflix, there is a 2023 movie written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, called His Three Daughters, starring Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne as three estranged sisters who come together because their father, Vincent, is in hospice, soon to die any day, and they gather at his rent-controlled apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where Rachel (Lyonne) has been living with their father, and the sisters aren't close, are wildly different from each other, and come at their anticipatory grief with varying ways of coping with it. They try to keep a polite front when the hospice staff members visit, but otherwise fight with each other, with a lot of high tension in the air.
Katie (Coon) quickly takes charge, ordering around Rachel and seeing her as a freeloading pot-smoking gambler who is only using their father to be on the lease for his cheap apartment. She is passive-aggressive, snarking at the hospice staff member being named Angel because of his work, and starts off the movie setting down ground rules for everyone to get along, before quickly treating Rachel like she is an insolent teenager in her own home. Katie has her stresses at home with her husband and children, having one-sided phone conversations, and is clearly trying to find some control in her life, but going way too far with it. She is also trying to get a DNR (do not resuscitate) order signed by her father with his sound mind, and is frustrated with Rachel with not having it done earlier.
Rachel shrinks in Katie's presence, is just trying to bear her presence to keep the peace, and often tries to stay out of her way, watching games in her room and doing bets, and smoking pot out on the bench in the co-op courtyard, often chatting with the security guard who comes around to say hi and gently remind her not to smoke on the premises. She has been taking care of her father all of this time, cutting up his apples because it's all he can eat at that point, and handling things, but because she isn't his biological daughter, as her father died when she was four, her half-sisters don't see him as her "real" father, and distance themselves from her, which adds to the family divide.
Christina (Olsen) is more of a hippie space cadet type, who is the youngest, is the mother of a young child named Mirabella (and is amazed when one of the hospice staff workers has the same name), and tries to keep the peace between Katie and Rachel, not wanting them to argue and cause more stress. She tries to decompress by doing yoga in the living room, zoning out to take a break, and talks about how she found her community as a Deadhead when she was younger.
This is a really great movie, featuring three outstanding actresses, acting more like they are in a play than a film, and I deeply connected to this film, with the sister stresses and arguments, especially with the strained relationship between Katie and Rachel. Without getting too personal, there were scenes between them that hit very close to home, especially when the camera focuses on Rachel sitting at a lower level, being chewed out by Katie, with Katie's face out of frame, that felt very real in feeling smaller in someone else's presence.
I saw this film at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan, and it's currently streaming on Netflix, and I highly recommend it.
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