In new Netflix movie His Three Daughters, three estranged sisters, played by The Leftovers' Carrie Coon, Poker Face's Natasha Lyonne, and the MCU's Elizabeth Olsen, reunite in their terminally ill father's New York City apartment in the days before his death. They're grappling with hospice nurses, their strained bonds with each other, and how to mourn someone who isn't actually dead yet.
But, despite the somber nature of the movie's subject matter, "it's also got a great sense of humor," Coon explains to 12DOVE. "Because when human beings are dealing with tragedy, we very rarely do it without humor at all. And so things that are humorless never feel very truthful to me. And this felt very truthful because of that. And it comes out of the circumstances. It's not like a joke a minute."
"A lot of it's in the language that I genuinely wasn't even paying attention to, because you have to say things earnestly," Olsen continues. "It's the character not even knowing that it's funny. And then you forget, when you're, like, seeing it in a trailer or a clip, you're like, 'Oh, yeah, that is a funny thing to say.' So there's humor throughout, without us pulling too much attention to it. It just kind of happened within the relationships."
The sisters' clashing personalities mean that tensions are high between the four walls of the apartment: Katie (Coon) is neurotic and desperately trying to take control of an uncontrollable situation, Christina (Olsen) is preoccupied with her own family back home, and Rachel (Lyonne) is frustrated that her sisters won't take her seriously because her life doesn't look like theirs.
"I feel like I'm somebody who can be quite a lot more honest about things if I'm not writing about myself," writer-director Azazel Jacobs explains. "I mean, the truth is that I can find myself being each of these sisters at different points of the day, so I find myself reflected by each of them."
His Three Daughters arrives in select cinemas on September 6 before releasing on Netflix on September 20. In the meantime, check out our picks of the other best Netflix movies to add to your watch list.
