The Chronology of Water is a raw, honest, and unforgiving portrayal of how an abusive childhood ripples throughout one’s life. It is definitely the best movie I’ve seen Imogen Poots in. And even though Kristen Stewart has a long acting career for her young age, her directorial skills in this film show a lot of promise. Her feature debut as a director, an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s critically acclaimed 2011 autobiographical memoir, is fully immersive, mesmerizing, and impressive.
As a teenager, Lidia, who is played brilliantly by Imogen Poots, finds a coping mechanism in swimming, experimenting with her sexuality, and writing poetry as a way of screaming into the void. After she grows into an adult, she resorts to alcohol and marries men she finds interesting, only to get bored of them rather quickly. At the same time, she learns to lean more and more into her writing to escape the pain. And while the swimming and the alcohol will keep her afloat for a while, the writing will be the very thing that saves her in the end.
Thora Birch’s performance here serves as a powerful reminder of her talent. She is uniquely suited to portray the kind of character she plays in The Chronology of Water. She’s Claudia, Lidia’s big sister, the one who ran away at the first chance to save herself from their household. Her flight causes no resentment or sense of abandonment between the sisters. The trauma they shared at the hands of their father results in a quiet and resolute understanding of each other when they meet again as adults. And although her time on the screen is rather short, Thora Birch manages to memorably exhibit the silent resilience of the survivor in complete antithesis to Imogen Poots’ character’s turbulent behavior. Even if they tackle their childhood memories differently, they’re both the product of the same traumatic past.
Just as Lidia is experimenting with different coping mechanisms to survive, Kristen Stewart is experimenting with directing. She uses scenes of water and sudden flashes of memories, incessantly moving from past to present to show that when it comes to memories and trauma, linear time ceases to matter. The way the image is smudged around the edges throughout the movie, as Lidia struggles to come to terms with her memories of her abusive father and passive mother, is a constant reminder that the trauma experienced in childhood follows a person everywhere, tainting everything in its path.
Stewart shoots The Chronology of Water in such a way that the viewer cannot escape its characters’ turmoil. For most of the movie, the camera focuses on their faces and their body movements, creating a strange, claustrophobic effect. And even though there are a lot of things left unsaid, barely implied, or never shown, the lyricism of the dialogue and Lidia’s inner monologue helps the audience pick up the pieces.
