"The Chronology of Water" - Kristin Stewart's Directorial Debut Gets Lost in the Current

It seems like everyone has some relationship with Kristen Stewart that ranges from complete dismissal of her because of the Twilight Saga to viewing her as one of this century’s great actors. I’d like to begin this review by stating my relationship with Kristen Stewart, which is none. As shocking as it may seem, I have never seen a Twilight movie. The only films with Stewart I have seen are her starring role in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer and her small but vital role in David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, neither of which I particularly love, but both films have merit. I say all this to set up my reaction to Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, which, to me, existed outside of the context of Stewart as a name, as it should be viewed.

Stewart’s adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir has been seven years in the making. Stewart announced her intention to make the film at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. In 2021, she cast Imogen Poots in the lead role, and in 2025, the film premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section, one of three debuts by well-known actors in the category. The Chronology of Water is a harrowing story of the long-term effects of childhood sexual trauma. Split into five chapters, the film directly adapts Yuknavitch’s memoir in a cinematic style I can only describe as akin to the writing of Kurt Vonnegut. It takes on an editing style, swiftly bouncing from reflection to reflection, memory to memory, using water as a consistent motif to link the puzzle pieces of Lidia’s life together.

This style I found for the most part quite alienating. It tries to reach the memory palace formalism of Terrence Malick, but often becomes closer to Andrew Dominik’s Blonde in its execution. The first and longest chapter covering the opening forty-five minutes, I found unbearable. On the surface, the chapter is quite powerful, directly confronting the abuse from Lidia’s father. Moments like Lidia’s father reading her college acceptance letters and denying each because none gave her a full ride to the university. “Didn’t even get one full ride,” her father says, “if they don’t want you, then you don’t belong there.” The audience understands the control, but the rapid formalism clouds the narrative from reaching its height, leaving much of this first chapter underwritten and lacking in subtext.

There’s a common issue I see in indie filmmaking today, a misunderstanding of “show, don’t tell.” In cinema, the show can be understood as the form, and the tell as the content, or dialogue. But it can also be the opposite. When you’re relying on repetition of visual imagery without a through-line of content, you're only telling the audience how to feel. Moments of horrible dialogue, over-narration, and over-dramatic performances are masked with rapid edits and its open matte aesthetic that I find purposeless. To me, it reads as an inability to properly represent the story, and I feel the film would be much stronger without this first chapter.

The second chapter is where the film finds its footing. Even in its weakest moments, Imogen Poots is still great. Her performance as Lidia takes a physical toll, and I commend Poots for the rigor and dynamism within her open and genuine performance. The film is at its best when Jim Belushi enters the picture, portraying a comically naturalistic take on author, Ken Kesey. The relationship between Lidia and Kesey is the highlight of the film. After years of sexual abuse, drug abuse, and a horrible miscarriage, Kesey, who relates to Lidia having lost a child himself, allows Lidia the space to flourish as a writer. He becomes the first supportive male presence in her life. An incredible moment comes at the end of the chapter, when a drunk Kesey puts his arm around Lidia. You think the relationship is about to turn sexual, and Kesey is just another man to take advantage of Lidia, but instead, he compliments her as a writer, giving her four slaps on the back like a father proud of their kid.

The following chapters continue to affirm Lidia and her path, and are quite moving. However, I did not find that it reached the heights of its second chapter. There are wonderful moments like Lidia’s poetry reading and exploring her relationship with S&M, two areas that the film treats as a positive release to externalize her trauma and heal from it. Poots’ performance heightens here and is at its most profound. She proves herself as a fantastic physical performer, letting her internal emotion affect her muscles and bones. You see her hold the character’s trauma in her back, her hands, her neck. It is quite beautiful.

Though it has its moments, Kristen Stewart’s debut gets lost in its form and only through Poots’ performance allows Lidia Yuknavitch’s story come through. I would love to see Stewart direct again, but to make a lasting work, the form and content must find a synthesis. As present, it is more a work of aestheticism. Aestheticism dissipates, story remains.