Kristen Stewart’s ‘The Chronology of Water’ Stays Too Close to the Surface

For her feature directorial debut, the actor Kristen Stewart has chosen to adapt a tough, lyrical memoir about a woman trying to out-swim a traumatic childhood and addiction. In The Chronology of Water, the writer Lidia Yuknavitch details the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her father and its long aftermath, from a scuttled competitive swimming career to new purpose found, years later, in writing. It’s a difficult piece, but Stewart has shown in her acting work that she’s a fan of daunting tasks.

The film, which premiered here at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, is no timid first foray into filmmaking. Stewart dives in full-body, keeping things ever in rapid motion—flickering forward and backward in time, ratcheting up high emotion and then suddenly breaking into a moment of dreamy peace. The effort is appreciated, even if all that style—however true it is to Yuknavitch’s prose—can sometimes overwhelm the meaning behind it.

Imogen Poots plays a version of Yuknavitch, from adolescence on. A promising freestyle swimmer with prospects of college recruitment, teenage Lidia perhaps sees athletics as her only escape from the routine horrors of her home. Her sister fled years ago, and Lidia is desperate to follow suit. But, of course, physical distance is not all that’s required to escape such lasting harm. Lidia turns to drugs and alcohol to disappear, and soon finds herself booted out of school and stumbling off into an entirely uncertain future, with sex and substances her only constant.

There’s a plain, linear story in there, but Stewart is more interested in the jumbled interiority of the mind. Her film bobs and weaves and loops, gradually creating a picture of a woman both trying to rid herself of her pain and, in a complicated and sometimes fruitful way, feeding off of it. The Chronology of Water is often a difficult sit, an oppressive mood piece steeped in unease and unhappiness. There are transcendent, lovely interludes, but for the first half of the film, we feel ourselves drowning just as Lidia is.

Which is effectively the point. It’s hard to ding Stewart for putting us in the proper mindframe. What nettles, or disappoints, about Chronology is that Stewart pays more time to flourishes of chaos and despair than she does to really sussing out the memoir’s central metaphors and conclusions. Despite heaps of voiceover straight from the book, we don’t really come to understand Yuknavitch’s thesis. Maybe there isn’t one, but I longed for a stronger tether between the words being said aloud and the images accompanying them. I’ve no doubt that Stewart has a deep grasp on the philosophy of Chronology, but she doesn’t do enough to explain it to us in the audience. A too-close-to-the-case ardor for the material does the film a disservice, as can sometimes happen when a cherished object is adapted. (“There are voices that help you find yours,” Stewart told VF earlier this week of Yuknavitch’s work. “It became a sacred text for me overnight.”)

The film exists at a remove, more object for formal study than something deeply felt. What does emotionally resonate feels unspecific to any one author; it’s just a generic, if compelling, tale of hard-won recovery. Stewart implies poetry rather than conjures it. The audience will just have to trust her about the wonders of Yuknavitch’s specific power.

Some of Chronology’s busy craft is admirable, though, as is the breakneck performance at the center of the film. While Poots sometimes hits a flat note, I think those are more the fault of an over-indicating script. In all other manner, Poots fiercely commits to the long journey of collapse and catharsis. She plays drunk with a bracing veracity, storming through much of the film in a mad reel. She’s resonant in the film’s softer stretches too, ache and bitter disillusionment pooled in her eyes. The film asks a lot of its star, requiring a certain degree of bravery and trust, and Poot’s work would suggest that Stewart provided safe, comfortable haven for a performer looking to take a big leap.

I did yearn for more dialogue—for more time to actually get to know Lidia beyond what is poetically but vaguely elucidated in voiceover. Poots is more than a mere vessel for snippets from the book, but she would be better served by a script that gave her more to play in any scene’s present tense. The full effect of Stewart’s fast-cut collage is that Lidia, and Poots, seem only to drift through the film rather than live in it. Still, cheers to Stewart for tackling something bold and complex in her first outing, and for bringing further attention to an acclaimed but lesser known memoir. Maybe read the book first, then watch the film as the artiest kind of supplemental material.

This story is part of Awards Insider’s in-depth Cannes coverage, including first looks and exclusive interviews with some of the event’s biggest names. Stay tuned for more Cannes stories as well as a special full week of Little Gold Men podcast episodes, recorded live from the festival and publishing every day.

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