The Chronology of Water
Director: Kristen Stewart
Writer: Kristen Stewart
Based on: Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir
Cast: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Charlie Carrick, Tom Sturridge, Susannah Flood, Esmé Creed-Miles, Michael Epp, Earl Cave, Kim Gordon
Seen on: 1.4.2026

Content Note: child (sexual) abuse, addiction

Plot:
Lidia (Imogen Poots) hopes to escape her family – an alcoholic mother (Susannah Flood) and an overbearing, authoritative father (Michael Epp) – through a swimming scholarship. Her sister Claudia (Thora Birch) already left. But her father is unwilling to let her go. Even when Lidia achieves this goal, she is far from being in a good place.

The Chronology of Water is sometimes very obviously a debut movie, but it is also a very assured debut with really good performances and an engaging sense for style.

The Chronology of Water tackles hard topics, tracing Lidia’s journey into adulthood in a not exactly linear way. It is almost, but not quite fragmented the way that memories often are. Together with the grainy 16mm images, it gives the film a wonderful fragility without romanticizing anything.

Every once in a while a jump from one situation to the next was a little too abrupt, though, leaving us to piece together things without giving us enough information to do so. For example, the scene were Lidia has a BDSM encounter – I only gathered from the film’s plot summary that this was a therapy session and not a short-lived romantic relationship. Or when Lidia is suddenly back in a writer’s program and meets Ken Kesey (Jim Belushi), we have to wonder who her friend is and how she got there because the film doesn’t give us this explanation.

Imogen Poots carries most of the film, and does so very well. It really feels like she put her heart into the film. It both shows and pays off. Jim Belushi was also wonderful and warm, and it was nice to get an aging professor who has unusual ideas that cross the boundaries of what is considered right in the academic context (and elsewhere) – and is not a creepy predator. Yay! The bar is in hell and I hope it’s true that Kesey was really like that and not a creep.

In short, it is a really promising first time movie with a surprisingly clear artistic direction. I hope Stewart continues making movies from behind the camera as well.

Summarizing: very good.