The Chronol­o­gy of Water – first-look review

The trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of water lies at the heart of Amer­i­can writer Lidia Yuknavitch’s mem­oir, informed by her ado­les­cent dreams of swim­ming being her escape from an abu­sive child­hood home. The Chronol­o­gy of Water tracks the tides of her life as she bat­tles addic­tion, abuse, and the lin­ger­ing scars from a sex­u­al­ly vio­lent upbring­ing. It’s heavy mate­r­i­al, and Yukanvitch’s stylised prose doesn’t nat­u­ral­ly lend itself to adap­ta­tion, but it’s easy to see why her sto­ry appealed to Kris­ten Stew­art for her direc­to­r­i­al debut. Yuknavitch’s defi­ant spir­it seems to mir­ror Stewart’s own kick­ing back against Hol­ly­wood for its repeat­ed attempts to box her in.

Imo­gen Poots car­ries the weight of the film as Lidia, from a wide-eyed teenag­er claw­ing out from under her father’s thumb to a cel­e­brat­ed writer and Eng­lish teacher, through tur­bu­lent romances, per­son­al crises and her con­tin­ued reck­on­ing with the des­per­ate sad­ness of her child­hood. Water – in lakes, pools, bath­tubs and tears – offers a source of phys­i­cal and metaphor­i­cal cleans­ing (in the open­ing scene we see bright red blood swirl down a show­er drain while Lidia cries in pain) and Stew­art adopts the same five chap­ter struc­ture as her source mate­r­i­al: Hold­ing Breath, Under Blue, The Wet, Resus­ci­ta­tions and The Oth­er Side of Drown­ing. There’s a loose time­line in place, though the nar­ra­tive slips and slides through Lidia’s mem­o­ries, frag­ment­ed and shift­ing, as she tries to find order in chaos.

Stewart’s direc­to­r­i­al debut doesn’t lack ambi­tion; the opaque­ness of the time­line and grainy, 16mm empha­sise the dream­like nature of Yuknavitch’s prose, though the film’s ten­den­cy to repeat images becomes a lit­tle tir­ing. The con­tin­u­al noise and nar­ra­tion also cre­ate a claus­tro­pho­bic feel­ing that threat­ens to over­whelm the nar­ra­tive, with lit­tle room giv­en for the weight of Lidia’s words to breathe. If the intent is to cre­ate a film as sti­fling and chaot­ic as Yuknavitch’s sto­ry this is achieved, but the film sags under the weight of its many artis­tic flourishes.

But there’s a potent earnest­ness about The Chronol­o­gy of Water – Stew­art shows a deep empa­thy for her sub­ject, and Yuknavitch’s mem­oir is trans­formed with an unapolo­getic con­fi­dence. Sex, vio­lence, fear and joy: Lidia feels it all, and feels it all deeply. Her trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence work­ing with Ken Kesey (Jim Belushi) is par­tic­u­lar­ly ten­der; it’s here she finds con­fi­dence in her writ­ing, while lat­er, explor­ing her sex­u­al­i­ty on her own terms final­ly allows Lidia the free­dom her father tried des­per­ate­ly to deny. It’s an imper­fect but com­pelling first fea­ture, bol­stered by Poots’ com­mit­ted per­for­mance, even with the dis­tract­ing bells and whis­tles of a film­mak­er try­ing things out for the first time. But if this is a state­ment of intent about Stewart’s film­mak­ing future, there might be a tru­ly great film in her yet.

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