The Chronology of Water is a 2025 biographical psychological drama, directed by Kristen Stewart (her directorial feature debut), based on the 2011 memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch. Sources seem to vary as to whether the screenplay was wholly written by Stewart or co-written with Yuknavitch’s ex-husband Andy Mingo. It had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and was released in the UK last Friday, 6 February.

Edvard Munch famously set out to capture in his paintings the memory, emotional atmosphere, and psychological state of a moment rather than its realistic likeness; it felt to me that this is how Stewart had approached making this film. She does not simply document the abuse Lidia (Imogen Poots) suffered at the hands of her father and the effect this had on her life but somehow manages to show Lidia’s resulting emotional journey.

I am not going to try to sum up the plot myself, but rather quote Yuknavitch’s own words, from an essay she wrote about her personal response to reading Kathy Acker’s novel Blood and Guts in High School: 

“The decade during which I most wanted to kill myself contained coming to terms with my father’s transgressions by embarking on a sexually frenzied odyssey, a drug-induced epic world tour of counter-cultures, free-flowing abortions and aberrations and unending altered states, an abysmally failed marriage, flunking out of college, a self-loathing crescendo culminating in a daughter who died the day she was born. For this reason, Kathy Acker’s book saved my life.”

I confess that I had not come across Yuknavitch before seeing this film and am thus unfamiliar with her writing – I will try to put that right.

Imogen Poots performance in the role of Lidia is raw and brutal, heartbreaking and at times almost unbearable to watch. It is a tremendous achievement.

The Chronology of Water makes for very uncomfortable viewing but is a remarkable piece of filmmaking and will stay in the memory for a long time.