Netflix’s most traumatic movie of the year is so much worse if you’re an only child

If you don’t have any siblings, Netflix’s latest tear-jerker, His Three Daughters, isn’t going to make you feel any better about your parents getting older. 

For those of us who grew up as an only child, being a kid was a dream. You never had to share toys; all the attention was on you at Christmas, and birthday cards were always stacked with cash. Sure, you had to break the glass ceiling of your parents’ tolerance for bad (and good) behavior, but who cares? You earned the rewards.

Fast forward to your adult years, and things aren’t looking so rosy. Suddenly, your parents are aging, care home brochures are being sent through the mail, and people are starting to make wills and funeral arrangements. That sounds bleak, but so is life as a twentysomething. The kicker? You’re going to be the sole person around to deal with this added despair.

I have this startling realization a lot, similar to a sleepwalker finding themselves in their kitchen without knowing how they got there. My parents are just about to hit 60, and my grandparents are well into their 80s. Everybody’s getting older, and age feels like a weight sinking into my shoulder. 

That’s why when I watched His Three Daughters – the new Netflix movie about three sisters coming together in their dad’s final days – I was struck by a selfish realization. None of these women’s lives were perfect, but they had each other. Meanwhile, I have no one… and frankly, that’s scared me more than any horror movie has in years. 

His Three Daughters is a wake-up call for anyone with no siblings 

Don’t get me wrong – anybody watching His Three Daughters is going to have a tough time. Katie (Carrie Coon) is a stressed-out mom at breaking point, Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) is a stoner who has never left her dad’s side, and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) quietly suffers while trying to keep the peace. Set in the confines of one apartment, the tension never goes away.

It’s New York, so there’s limited space to live, let alone die in peace. Director Azazel Jacobs told me “You know that something that you’re dreading is happening, and then at some point, that dreading becomes waiting. And that’s a really strange shift when you know that every minute counts because it could be the last minute of someone’s life. 

“At the same time, you’ve stepped out of your whole life.”

Netflix

That last sentence perfectly described the daze I sat in for at least half an hour after the movie ended. Jacobs has given me the wake-up call I didn’t even know I needed. I stepped out of my life as Jasmine a little while ago, giving way to my life as “daughter.”

Is it the right decision? No. Is it happening anyway? Yes. Unlike the sisters, I’ve not got collective hallucinations, silly selfies, and making up after years of fighting to keep me going. I’m in this on my own. If I’m ever having to wheel my own dad into his living room to watch soccer one last time, there’s nobody to help.

It’s a brutal watch, and I already feel sorry for the other unsuspecting only children who will sit down for a nice night of streamable escape only to be confronted with stuff they’ve been running away from. Jacobs has done the inevitable death scene beautifully, but it’s also the final piece that breaks the fourth wall.

The girls have their moment to hear everything their dad wishes they’d have known before he died – essentially, the moment many of us are desperate to have happen. It’s an unexpected, thorough, and honest scene, and does justice to those who never got their own moment. Perhaps, if anything, this is what I can cling to as my own moment of hope.  

His Three Daughters is available to stream on Netflix from September 20. You can find more Netflix updates for Virgin River Season 6, Stranger Things Season 5, and Heartstopper Season 3. You can also check out new movies streaming this month.