film

This raw and restless adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir is the long-awaited directorial feature debut by Kristen Stewart, and what an entrance it is. Imogen Poots plays Yuknavitch and brilliantly captures her mix of ferocity and vulnerability in a story that takes in childhood abuse, competitive swimming, academic discovery, addiction, sex and writing. 

Stewart’s camera is often kept claustrophobically close on the body, and voiceover, text and tonal shifts collide to create a collage-like work. Fragmented, ebbing and surging by design – Stewart tells this water-based story in a way that closely imitates the sensation of rushing water – The Chronology of Water is less a story about overcoming trauma than about learning to live in its wake.