His Three Daughters: 'sharply written' family drama is 'deeply affecting'

There's no shortage of "dysfunctional family movies and terminal-illness movies. And even the good ones have trouble sidestepping clichés", said Justin Chang on NPR. So "it says something that 'His Three Daughters', which is about a dysfunctional family coping with a terminal illness, doesn't feel like a retread".

A "sharply written" chamber piece, it is set over a few days in an apartment in Manhattan, where three sisters have gathered to say their goodbyes to their dying father Vincent (Jay O. Sanders). The oldest of the daughters is Katie (Carrie Coon), who lives in nearby Brooklyn but hasn't visited Vincent much lately; then there's Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), a stoner who has been acting as his carer; and finally Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), who seems to lead a charmed life miles from New York. 

The acting and writing "have such specificity" that you soon feel intimately acquainted with the characters; and the ending is both "optimistic and deeply affecting". This is a film that, "in the shadow of death, says something essential about how we live".

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An absorbing gem about the "shifting sands within family relationships", "His Three Daughters" has a clever, witty script, and boasts some excellent performances, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Olsen in particular is exquisite, somehow turning "the least interesting role into the most watchable".

I thought Lyonne was terrific, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph. But mainly, alas, because she comes across as a "breath of fresh air" in an otherwise stultifyingly heavy-handed film. With just one poky set, the cast seem "stuck on a stage, doing the modern equivalent of cut-rate Chekhov".