The Chronology of Water

For her feature directorial debut, Kristen Stewart takes on the ambitious task of adapting the 2011 experimental memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch, whose poetical deep-dive into her own experiences of sexual abuse and addiction would seem to be untranslatable. Against the odds, THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER announces Stewart as a bold visual stylist, with a penchant for abstraction and elliptical storytelling that honours the source material’s delirium of grief and ecstasy. Shot in 16mm with an intentionally jagged editing style that resembles the shards of memory, the film follows Lidia (Imogen Poots) through key moments in her life: her traumatic childhood in the suburbs of the Pacific Northwest; her time spent in indoor pools as a competitive swimmer; her sexual experimentations and reckless drug use, the latter of which sees her in and out of rehab. Voiceover narration plunges the viewer into Lidia’s stream-of-consciousness, while Poots delivers a disarmingly vulnerable performance that viscerally communicates the crisis of a woman uncomfortable in her own mind and body, yet desperately fighting to find a sense of peace within them. (Beatrice Loayza)

Kristen Stewart: COME SWIM (2017, K), CRICKETS (2020, K), THE FILM (2023, K)