A trio of powerhouse talents, Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne and Carrie Coon, play sisters in one of the latest titles on Netflix movie and TV show release dates for this weekend, His Three Daughters. In what is one of the most acclaimed of 2024 movies, the estranged siblings come together to take care of their father, who is officially in hospice when the movie starts. When CinemaBlend interviewed the movie’s writer/director, Azazel Jacobs, he spoke to how the movie pays tribute to the hospice nurses of the world.
While hospice is seldom the topic of movies, it’s something that is increasingly common among families, with there being 1.8 million hospice users as of 2024, per the University of Pennsylvania (in comparison to 500k in 2000). During my conversation with His Three Daughters’ Azazel Jacobs, he spoke about highlighting the process through the dramedy. In his words:
Well, I could say that not finding out about hospice nurses until later in my life, it's not a coincidence that I named a character Angel. Like, I cannot believe that these people exist. I'm so grateful to really so much just so many of these kinds of nurses. No matter what's going on in this world, there's these people that seem to be treating everybody in the most human and humane way. And, I am in awe of them. So I think that's something that I try to bring into this film as best as I can. And also understand that they're human beings wrestling with their own lives. And, there's nothing robotic or unemotional about it.
As the filmmaker shared, he intentionally named the main hospice nurse in His Three Daughters “Angel” in order to subtly nod to how much he is in “awe” of those who work in the field. Hospice professionals tend to patients and their families who are terminally ill by reducing the pain and suffering they are going through in the hours, days or months leading to their death. It requires a lot of patience and empathy for the host of emotions a patient and their loved ones might be going through.
In the movie, tensions form between the three sisters who are dealing with the decline of their father with him in hospice. Natasha Lyonne’s Rachel has been living and dealing with his illness on a daily basis prior to being placed in hospice, while Elizabeth Olsen’s Christina and Carrie Coon’s Katie have newly arrived to spend quality time with their ailing dad.
The two new arrivals quickly start to argue over things Rachel does, like smoking weed and her failure to have their father sign a Do Not Resuscitate form when he was lucid. As the movie continues to unfold, the three sisters confront what they are collectively dealing with together.
When it came to bringing together the three actresses, behind the scenes Azazel Jacobs actually wrote the movie with Olsen, Lyonne and Coon in mind. He told us that he “knew their voices and their rhythm enough” that he felt they would “capture” what he wanted them to for the movie, and that they did. The movie has a near-perfect 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the most highly-acclaimed movies of 2024.
You can watch His Three Daughters now with a Netflix subscription.
