From left to right, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, and Natasha Lyonne in His Three Daughters (Sam Levy/Netflix)

From a production standpoint alone, Azazel Jacobs’s fascinating new film could easily have worked as a play. A few sequences outside a New York apartment and on the street aside, His Three Daughters largely takes place within the confines of the apartment’s walls. Its owner, Vincent, is in his final days, with one of his daughters, Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), sharing the apartment space and tending to his needs. The urgency of his condition has brought her stepsisters Katie (Carrie Coon) and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) to the apartment, both of whom love their father but seem at odds with each other and especially Rachel. Tempers flare, old grudges resurface, and a demand to finalize Vincent’s do-not-resuscitate order hangs over the trio’s heads as each does what they think is best for dad, often to the extent of stepping on one other’s toes.

Katie and Christina hail from Vincent’s first marriage. After his first wife died, he married Rachel’s mom and, in turn, Rachel came to see Vincent as more of a father than her own ever was. Katie struggles over the phone with her teenager’s rebelliousness while barking orders around the apartment like a type-A hardliner. Christina comes across as a bit loopy with her constantly cheerful demeanor. And Rachel rarely seems willing to rock the boat when her sisters cast unwarranted judgment on her reasons for staying in the apartment. She’s the most reserved of the three, enjoying weed, sports betting, and occasionally hanging out with her romantic partner Benji (Jovan Adepo), yet she behaves almost like a guest in the apartment as Katie tries to take command of the situation. Some of these reveals are explicit, others more subtle, yet they all create a vividly imperfect family dynamic that ebbs and flows as the clock ticks toward a death in the family that will, inevitably, bring the feuding sisters together.

Although a few other characters pop in and out of the story, our attention is mostly fixated on Coon, Olsen, and Lyonne. All three actors are at the top of their game, whether it’s delivering stirring/exasperated monologues or sitting in silence as heartache threatens to overwhelm them completely. Moments of arrogance, pity, selfishness, empathy, and occasionally humor all feel real, making their occasional attempts to properly reconnect or heal old wounds all the more poignant.

Jacobs (French Exit) is great at selling this grief through visual cues too. The apartment’s melancholic vibe often borders on the claustrophobic, cut off from the outside world even as a New York skyline remains clearly visible through the windows. Katie and Christina frequently go into Vincent’s room to check on him, yet he’s always kept off camera. Rachel, meanwhile, seems scared of entering that door, either leaning just on the edge of its frame or speaking to her dad from the adjacent hallway. It then becomes a big shock when the climax literally brings Vincent (Jay O. Sanders) into the foreground, giving the story a closure that’s visually up to interpretation yet will ultimately tug at the heartstrings.

The home is, in some respects, a tinderbox of emotion. Watching the sisters’ arguments and lingering accusations is like striking several matches and waiting for the fire to emerge. All of which is grounded by the emotional toll of seeing a family member pass away and doing all you can to make it peaceful. His Three Daughters is about grappling with death and reckoning with the highs and lows in a person’s life—and how one’s flaws get in the way of a family coming together when it matters most.

With three stellar performances under one roof, His Three Daughters is a fantastic acting showcase for Coon, Lyonne, and Olsen’s talents, and a clear Oscar candidate once Netflix begins courting the Academy. Don’t let this drama, or the anguish it’ll wring out of streaming audiences, pass you by.