Diractors is an ongoing series in which Hassle writer Jack Draper examines films, new and old, whose directors are better known for their work in front of the camera.

Sometimes one of the more effortlessly cool movie stars makes a movie that captures their aura perfectly. Other times, that movie star is a sophisticated actor who can craft these naturalistic performances from an inspired ensemble. If they’re really good, their film might feel the influence of Lynne Ramsay, Terrence Malick, or Alison Anders, while not feeling like just a copy from what’s come before. All these hyperbolic compliments are accurate when thinking about how much of a thrill Chronology of Water, the directorial debut from Kristin Stewart, truly is. There’s such confidence behind the camera that this doesn’t feel like a debut, but it’s still complete with K-Stew’s sensibility that is expected from a diractor. You get the sense that Water may have legitimate tension and pathos if made by someone else in a more jagged and obtuse way, but Stewart showing that this is possible is so exciting. Adapting a memoir is a bit of a thankless task, but Stewart really feels like she knows, then befriends, a version of Lidia Yuknavitch that existed for a brief moment before a complete loss of innocence. 

In keeping with Yukanavitch’s life, the storytelling and how it makes us feel is scatterbrained. Imogen Poots, at her very best, embodies Lidia as a mess so self-destructed that it’s far too large to clean up. But she tries, after birthing a passion for writing, to heal from her abusive dad while escaping from coexisting with her substance abuse as a response from her dad taking advantage of her. At the University of Oregon, she studies under Ken Kesey (the great Jim Belushi), who imparts on her such wisdom as “shit floats, cream rises” whilst becoming each other’s drinking buddies. There are no establishing shots, no time-identifying title cards, and only a handful of snippets that last long enough to be described as a scene; one minute Lidia is screaming at her college boyfriend for being too nice, as if he should have intuited that she only understood love through the damaged thinking of abuse, and the next she’s enduring one of life’s hardest moments with her older sister (Thora Birch) at her side. 

I’m in awe of Chronology, yet it’s a tough one to articulate, as it’s better to view as an experience. Each moment in the movie is like a magnet, with some of the pieces connecting while others are impossible to attach. Poots has never been better, keeping up with an admittedly difficult narrative structure to keep up the pace of humanizing different parts of Lidia. Every word is said with such pain, and each continuing shot of her leaping into the pool more vulnerable. “You can tell a lot about a person from seeing them in the water,” Yuknavitch wrote in her book, and that remains true for herself in life outside swimming. She’s the kind of person who lives life out loud. Stewart finds how little she has to hide some of the more compelling parts of how the fragments of the movie connect, thus spinning the memoir on its head. Only the way she treats others signals how much she’s healed. 

Kristin Stewart being one of my favorite actors is a true “real heads know” take, but there’s a reason her and Rob Pattinson continue to impress like they do. Above anything of a well manicured structure, Stewart is more concerned with letting us feel what Lidia feels, mostly at the ugly moments. These images were already with Stewart before she had ambitions of filmmaking. And she’s made a career of taking on vulnerable but internally damaged women. Even when she’s in something that doesn’t exist, like Seberg, Camp X-Ray or Cafe Society (yikes!), it’s a credit to an interesting actor when they can still be appreciated when something doesn’t completely work. Stewart’s capital-M Mannerisms work at their very best once the filmmaker knows that the character is in need of some mystery to that character. Poots is in a similar mold to what Stewart has become careful at reinventing, using these tiny moments to inform a character’s bigger struggle. 

Chronology of Water
2025
dir. Kristen Stewart
128 min.

Now playing @ Coolidge Corner Theatre