'His Three Daughters' review: Netflix's profound drama of sisters reunited in their father's final days

The opening scene in writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ searing and memorable and almost unbearably relatable “His Three Daughters” features the excellent Carrie Coon delivering a two-minute monologue that makes us feel as if we’re watching Coon onstage at Steppenwolf, absolutely owning the moment. We might well think: No performance in this film will match what we’ve just seen.

That would be prematurely presumptive.

Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen also have their brilliant, individual showcase moments to match the work of Coon, but this trio is even more impressive when they’re playing off each other, bouncing insecurities and long-held resentments and complicated feelings off the wall, playing sisters who haven’t spent much time in the same room in years. Now, with their father down the hall and dying, they’ve gathered to say their goodbyes to him — that is, if they can make it through the next days without one of them saying or doing something that will send all of them scattering away from one another, once and for all.

Set entirely in and around the spacious, rent-controlled apartment in the Bronx complex where the three grew up, and yet never feeling staged or claustrophobic, “His Three Daughters” has the mood of a Bergman film and the staccato dialogue beats of a David Mamet work. Coon, Lyonne and Olsen (and a few key supporting players) hold us in their grips throughout the running time of 101 minutes, which flies by in surprisingly brisk fashion, given the gravity of the material.

It’s impossible for me to imagine a viewer — especially anyone with siblings — watching this film and NOT feeling something profound and resonant. This is a movie swirling in a cauldron of raw and frayed emotions, yet never coming across as treacly or overly sentimental.

Carrie Coon’s Katie is the oldest sister, a tightly wound and blunt-speaking mother of three who lives in Brooklyn but apparently hasn’t spent much time lately checking in on her father, Vincent (Jay O. Sanders), who has been gravely ill for a long while and has taken a turn for the worse. Elizabeth Olsen’s Christina is the youngest, who was once a free-spirited, mushroom-imbibing Deadhead but now lives somewhere far across the country with her husband and daughter, living the life of the quintessential, find-your-inner-chi, almost unnervingly happy suburban spouse and mom.

In the middle of it all, excuse the pun, is the stepsister who is younger than Katie and older than Christina: Natasha Lyonne’s Rachel, who was a young child when her mother married Vincent. Even though Vincent is not biologically related to Rachel, he’s the only father she’s ever known, and she loves him deeply. She has her own bedroom in the apartment and she’s the one who’s been taking care of their dad day in and day out.

Sporting flaming red hair and spending most of her days and nights unapologetically getting high, Rachel is also an inveterate sports gambler who loves to bet longshot parlays. (As usual, Lyonne quickly creates a character who feels fully believable.)

As soon as Katie arrives on the scene, she’s demanding that Rachel stop smoking inside the apartment and issuing proclamations about how the three siblings should comport themselves. (When Katie says, “I hope we can make this easy on him. Just not make a thing of anything,” it’s clear she has a way of making a thing out of everything.)

With the cinematographer Sam Levy capturing the proceedings in docudrama style, and the sound team providing valuable cues reminding us we’re in a city apartment, “His Three Daughters” is mostly about the shifting dynamics between the sisters, who have come to grips with their father’s impending death but are on shaky ground when it comes to addressing their feelings about one another.

Jovan Adepo as Rachel’s boyfriend Benji has a signature moment when Benji calls out Katie for barely registering his existence and dismissing Rachel’s sacrifices, while Rudy Galvan provides something approaching comic relief as the appropriately named Angel, the hospice caregiver who is almost relentlessly kind and is driving the sisters nuts because nearly every day, he says this could be Vincent’s last day and they must be prepared for that.

Late in the film, we also hear from Vincent, and it’s best I don’t reveal the circumstances of how that comes to pass. What I will say is that Jay O. Sanders gives a one-scene performance that is the equal to the brief yet Oscar-winning turns by Judi Dench in “Shakespeare in Love” and Beatrice Straight in “Network,” and yes, it’s that great. Still, “His Three Daughters” is primarily a movie about a man dying as told through the experiences of those about to say goodbye, and it will stay with you for a very long time.