There have been so many “this specific emotion has never been explored this way” movies that, at a certain point, it really only comes down to whether or not something you watch is showing you an emotion that you’re familiar with except from a perspective you likely haven’t thought of before. Surprisingly, that’s not at all what makes Azazel Jacobs’ His Three Daughters so emotionally overwhelming. Since love, loss, and grief are things people have been feeling since the dawn of time, I wholeheartedly appreciate that His Three Daughters doesn’t desperately scout out a new way to look at these things. Why this movie about three sisters coming together to see their father off to eternal sleep is so engaging is because it’s showing you things you or someone close to you has been through and felt. Death can be a transformative thing, not just for the person dying but for everyone they’re leaving behind with both fond and bitter memories. That’s something that Azazel’s film feels in its bones.
Spoiler Alert
What happens in the film?
People drift apart. That’s how it usually goes, right? And that’s not always a bad thing. It is, however, pretty tragic how circumstances and the growing bitterness born from said circumstances have put walls up between Katie, Christina, and Rachel, three sisters who’ve flocked to Rachel’s NYC apartment because their dad’s on his deathbed. Here’s the thing. I don’t think these three were ever truly close, even as kids. Katie’s all vinegary and defensive, and she might be the most obtuse about how mean she’s coming off when she’s questioning literally all of Rachel’s life choices and personality traits. Christina seems to have taken on the loving, calming, mothering role in her life itself. And Rachel, well, she’s got her life together in a way that’s usually considered dysfunctional in boomer circles. But her ways aren’t the only thing that makes her an eyesore to Katie and almost a stranger to Christina. Rachel’s not Vincent’s biological daughter, and her mom was stepmom to Katie and Christina. This isn’t one of those cases where love surpasses the pettiness a person feels for someone who’s associated with tragic or unpleasant life events. Rachel was just an innocent kid who found her father in a man she didn’t share a blood relation with. But Katie’s bitterness about seeing another woman replacing her mother after her death and having to share her father’s love with a new kid has forever blinded her to a lot of wonderful truths about her family. And a bubbling, volatile mix of all these wounds, both fair and unfair, is what makes it a challenge for Vincent’s three daughters to play nice for the sake of their dying father.
What part does Rachel’s boyfriend play in all this?
I know it’s cliche to say that something like the imminent death of a loved one really puts things into perspective, but ironically enough, Katie proved the truth of this statement the first time we met her. Don’t get me wrong, when this thing started, she was in no way capable of putting her grievances toward Rachel aside and just being there for her dad. But just the fact that that was in fact her plan and that she really wanted to do it– that says enough about the shift in her intentions after Vincent’s health’s final decline. We know that she didn’t visit Vincent and Rachel a lot, which is a lot more justifiable for Christina given she lives pretty far away. The reason Katie kept her distance was her gloom about the fact that Rachel was so close to their dad. But Katie’s not a bad person, per se. So this bitterness also comes with an undertone of guilt, something she handles the same way you’d expect a very flawed person to handle complex emotions. It comes out in her often extreme judgment of anything and everything Rachel chooses to do. From lashing out at Rachel for smoking pot in the apartment to overwhelming Christina with her complaints about Rachel only having old apples in her fridge, Katie’s desperate to have her voice heard. And what does it do to Christina?
From what I’ve seen, it seems Christina’s always played the part of the peacemaker in the pointless war between Katie and Rachel. She doesn’t want to validate Katie’s feelings about Rachel, but she’d rather just leave the scene than call her sister out on her questionable behavior towards her other sister. Frankly, Rachel and Christina are too close to the situation and too accustomed to the tense air to try and mend things now. That’s why Rachel’s boyfriend Benjy’s role is so important in Katie’s receding ignorance about the reality of her family. He’s the kind, wholesome “outsider” whose voice isn’t muffled in the face of Katie’s disdain. It’s through him that Katie gets the reality check of a lifetime. She needed to hear that the apples that went soft in the refrigerator were the last things Rachel would feed their dad just a couple weeks back, back when he could still eat. She also needed to acknowledge that Rachel was there taking care of their ailing father all by herself. Katie’s assumptions about Rachel also speak to the stereotypes around people whose lifestyles don’t exactly mirror what society recognizes as “reliable” or “responsible.” Benjy doesn’t magically fix everything. But he does chip a few bricks off the wall Katie puts up against any truth that doesn’t align with her unreasonable emotions. When things are this dire, even a half-hearted apology that leads to a rabid fight between the three sisters is a step forward. At least it’s not passive-aggressive anymore.
How do Katie, Rachel, and Christina mend their differences?
You know, there’s a pretty valid reason behind my not talking about Christina too much so far. She’s the quietest of them all. And for the most part, we hardly get a whiff of what’s brewing inside that head of hers. But her generally calm, pacifying presence doesn’t really mask the fact that she isn’t okay. There’s a clear sense that she’s always had to be the big sister even though she’s the youngest. She’s kind of been stepping onto the empty pedestal of a mother figure in the family. And all that nurturing feminine energy is what makes her such a good mom to her little daughter too. She’s just chosen better ways to handle her issues. She meditates her anxieties away. And because she’s the most stable of the three of them, she’s the one who sits her sisters down to have a chat and work out their differences, if only to give their father the send-off he deserves. What comes up in that emotionally charged confab is a lot of anger, some valid, some misguided, and a truth that’s eluded all three of them for all their lives–they don’t really know each other too well. There are petty jealousies, of course. Because Katie’s always been hateful of Rachel for taking a chunk of the love that Katie felt entitled to, she’s also quite bitter about the fact that Rachel’s name’s on the lease of the apartment. She’s unwilling to recognize what Rachel’s given in exchange for the right to call that place her home, just like she’s unwilling to accept that Vincent is, in fact, just as much Rachel’s father as he is hers. But there’s one thing that Rachel and Katie have in common. Both of them assume Christina has this perfect life just because she never complains. Neither of them has ever bothered asking her if there’s something she’d like to get off her chest. And by now, Christina’s just learned to be an island emotionally–self-sufficient and strong. This amazing shift takes over the apartment once all their truths are out in the open. Turns out, even Katie’s behavior is rooted in a very specific kind of exploitation. She’s always felt this obsessive need to bring order to the chaos that is life. And that’s only because no one else has stepped in to share the burden. Even life with her husband and her rebellious teenage daughter is something that Katie’s in charge of managing. Having to always be the “bad guy” who’s speaking the hard facts and enforcing the stick in the mud rules has been her normal for so long that Katie’s forgotten how to be anything else. And that kind of explains why Katie treats Rachel the way she does. In her mind, Rachel’s not much unlike her unruly teen, someone she’s been trying to tame because the dad would rather be the “fun dad” and take no responsibility. So it’s really adorable how Rachel starts to feel for Katie when she overhears her begging her husband to pick up some of the slack. Rachel reassures a panicky Katie that she won’t always have to worry about her daughter as much as now. No one stays a teenager forever.
What Is The Real Meaning Of Ending?
There’s this recurrent motif in His Three Daughters that explores death as a theme on a universal level: the obituary that Katie’s really been struggling with. It’s hard enough to come to terms with the fact that their father’s about to die. Even though Vincent has cancer and that disease, when diagnosed too far along, comes with the expectation of grief, it’s always practically impossible to imagine that the worst possibility will come true when it’s your loved one. And it’s not that Vincent’s daughters haven’t accepted the truth. Katie’s been losing her mind trying to make sure the DNR form gets signed. Underneath all her thorns, she’s just a daughter who doesn’t want her dad to be painfully resuscitated and subjected to the kind of “going on” that he doesn’t really want. But even then, they don’t want to be constantly reminded of what’s about to happen, which is why they bond over how much the hospice guy gets on their nerves. Coming to that obituary, each of their versions of their dad turns out to be so different that it seems like they’re only getting to fully know him now that he’s about to take his leave from their lives. It’s sweet how His Three Daughters practically blurts out its idea of death and grief in Christina’s anecdote about what Vincent once told her about death. Truly knowing someone happens in their absence. That statement doesn’t mean what Katie thinks it does. It’s untrue that we don’t really know someone when they’re alive. What it really means is that people are ever-changing. You can only know a phase of them, but the bigger picture is way more layered and complex. Vincent’s a lucky man to have three daughters who remember him through the changing seasons of his life. An obituary could never hope to grasp the essence of who someone was before they passed away. Who they were could only be remembered through the memories of the people they loved and influenced in ways that shaped them as people.
In the ending of His Three Daughters, when Katie, Christina, and Rachel realize that the moment they’ve been dreading has arrived, we see Vincent get up from his chair and talk to them. It’s only when we see him pass in that very chair, staring at the standing Vincent in his last moment, that we realize that the Vincent who was just talking to his daughters was the manifestation of his final thoughts. Remember how Angel told them that people sometimes have trouble letting go because something significant in their lives is still unresolved? This whole time, Vincent’s been hearing everything that’s been going on between the three girls that he loves more than anything in the world. He needed to set the record straight and tell them everything he hadn’t yet gotten around to telling them. So in his final moments, Vincent jots down everything that’s been of consequence in his fleeting life. He reprimands Katie for making Rachel feel like an outsider. He apologizes to Christina for not doing enough for her as a parent; Christina was always too self-sufficient, and because she never asked for help, she was always left to fend for herself emotionally. Vincent’s one, oddly grateful regret is about an old Irish love, someone who changed the very course of his life simply by being her wonderful, curious self. That’s Vincent, as a whole. A man who’s lived a very full life and has felt pain, love, joy, regrets, and grief just like any man does. And now, as he breathes his last, he’s cradled into his understanding of where one goes after death with the comfort of knowing that his girls are now closer than ever.
In His Three Daughters’ ending, Christina humming Five Little Ducks is a metaphor that combines the very meaning of the film with several of the story’s aspects. It’s a rhyme that practically describes the different stages of Vincent’s life. The complete family, the incomplete family, when his nest was empty because all three of his daughters went away to live their own experiences, and finally, when his monitor went “beep beep beep” and it got them all to come back home. So, isn’t the rhyme itself the most fitting obituary that captures what really mattered to Vincent before his life came to a close? He’s always wanted his daughters to get along and realize how much they actually love each other. And in the closing scene, even Rachel’s respecting Katie’s wishes, even though Katie’s not even there, and sitting outside to smoke pot. I’d say that Vincent drifted off with a full heart.
