The Chronology of Water

Name: The Chronology of Water
Director: Kristen Stewart
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Romance, Arts and culture
Released: 2025
Duration: 2 h 8 min
Cast: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Charlie Carrick, Tom Sturridge

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Documentary
Drama

2025
Kristen Stewart
128 mins
18

Summary

As a young girl, Lidia witnesses the abuse that her father Mike inflicts on her older sister Claudia. Their alcoholic mother Dorothy is a silent observer to the horrors behind closed doors until Claudia runs away, abandoning Lidia to her father's unwanted and sickening advances.

IMDB

Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

James Mottram

Imogen Poots bares her soul in this heart-on-sleeve adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's 2011 memoir, which marks the directorial debut of actor Kristen Stewart. Raised in 1970s San Francisco with her sister (Thora Birch), Lidia (Poots) reflects on a bruising adolescence at the hands of her aggressive father (Michael Epp), when she only found escape in competitive swimming. As the years fall away, this ingrained pain turns into a pattern of addiction and sexual abuse via self-destructive relationships (with characters played by Tom Sturridge and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon). Told across five chapters, this story of salvation is delivered with passion by Stewart, even if there's something a little indulgent and naive in the handling. Lidia's journey isn't an easy watch, although there are warm moments such as her encounter with One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey (a well-cast Jim Belushi). Cinematographer Corey C Waters elegantly captures the fragmentary nature of memory in hazy 16mm, while Poots gives everything as a woman who ultimately finds redemption in the written word.

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6.3/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameLidiaImogen PootsClaudiaThora BirchKen KeseyJim BelushiAndy MingoCharlie CarrickDevinTom SturridgeDorothySusannah FloodClaireEsmé Creed-MilesPhotographerKim GordonMikeMichael EppCarol Houck SmithEleanor Hahn

Crew

rolenameDirectorKristen StewartWriterKristen StewartWriterLidia YuknavitchProducerRebecca FeuerProducerCharles GillibertProducerMaggie McLeanProducerDylan MeyerComposerParis HurleyDirector of photographyCorey C. WatersEditorOlivia Neergaard-HolmCastingKharmel CochraneCastingChelsea Ellis BlochCastingMarisol RoncaliCastingNika StepanovaProduction designerJen Dunlap