Actress Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut ‘The Chronology of Water’ has made quite the splash during festival season after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival

Twilight star Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, ‘The Chronology of Water,’ based on the 2011 memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch, had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and its New York premiere at the NewFest LGBTQ Film Festival.

Shot in 16mm and featuring an engrossing performance from Imogen Poots, the film marks an impressive directorial debut from someone who has been in the industry since childhood.

While ‘The Chronology of Water’ is deeply distressing and should come with a crash helmet, it is an earnest yet skillful display of Kristen Stewart’s aesthetic sensibility as a filmmaker.

READ MORE: Kristen Stewart has ‘hidden’ Twilight blooper that’s ‘never been seen’ by fans

OPINION

Julianna Salinas

The film follows Lidia, a talented swimmer who was sexually and physically abused by her father as a child, as she navigates life outside of her abusive household and deals with the emotional fallout of the trauma she experienced as she finds her voice as a writer.

Imogen Poots is a tour de force as Lidia, delivering a spellbinding performance as whatever the opposite of a manic pixie dream girl is. She is perfectly flawed in all the ways that women, especially those who have been through similar experiences to Lidia’s, can be. Add her to the ‘bad girl memoirist’ canon along with Elizabeth Wurtzel and Susanna Kaysen.

Throughout the film, all of the worst things that could possibly happen to a woman happen to Lidia. The film is based on a memoir, so these events actually occurred, but with a runtime of over two hours, it becomes exhaustingly repetitive. That, and the thousand metaphors about water.

Ultimately, the film is about a writer finding her voice and using her experiences to fuel her art. As a filmmaker, Kristen examines the effects of childhood trauma and how, sometimes, the cycles repeat themselves and manifest as substance abuse or self-harm. That being said, this film is not for the casual viewer.

The audience is left squirming in their seat waiting for the film to come to an end, which might be by design to mirror Lidia’s experience, but it feels needlessly tedious and makes the film hard to enjoy.

Visually, the film is gorgeously shot on 16mm, which lends it a dreamy aesthetic that clashes nicely with the darkness of the subject matter. At times, it feels like Kristen is throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the film. As far as cinematic techniques go, it feels like she has something to prove as an actor-turned-director.

It resembles a Tumblr-era Lana Del Rey music video and features a Fiona Apple needle drop, as well as a cameo from Sonic Youth frontwoman Kim Gordon.

‘The Chronology of Water’ is a deeply heartbreaking portrait of trauma and the catharsis of art, worth watching, if you can stomach it.

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Possession films are a dime a dozen. They have been done to death. That’s why it’s so refreshing when a film comes that does something different with this tired genre. One of the latest films to try to shake things up is Shaman. Did it succeed? Read on for my review of Shaman and find out!

A missionary family travels to rural Ecuador to convert the indigenous population. All is going well until their son ventures into a forbidden local cave and comes back with a demonic spirit in tow. Candice (Sara Canning) believes that an exorcism in the Catholic tradition will free her boy from the evil bonds that bind him. The local shamans know that this spirit is older than her religion and must be dealt with or the demon will take them all.

Shaman was directed by Antonio Negret (Overdrive) from a script by Daniel Negret. The film stars Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries), Daniel Gillies (The Originals), Jett Klyne (WandaVision), Alejandro Fajardo (Yellow Sunglasses), Humberto Morales, and Mercy Lema.

I was really excited to check out Shaman for two reasons: it claimed to do something different and because I am a huge Vampire Diaries and The Originals fan. I was excited to see Sara Canning and Daniel Gillies in a horror film. I’ll start with what worked before moving on to what didn’t work for me.

What Worked 

The acting was solid across the boards, with Canning and Gillies being high points. I also should mention Mercy Lema who plays Rosa. She held her own with Hollywood actors, and I would definitely check out more of her work if she did more horror. There are some creepy visuals and a few genuinely disturbing moments.

What Didn’t Work

I really hated the majority of the characters. The family at the center of the story are Christian missionaries who are ministering to people in Ecuador. They act all high and mighty, don’t respect others religious choices, dismiss other’s religion as complete bullshit and generally don’t practice what they preach. It made it really hard to give a shit about them when they were so awful. There was an over reliance on CGI during some of the possession scenes. I feel it would have been better if they leaned more into practical effects. The film boast its originality but honestly, its originality doesn’t really hit until the final act. By then, it’s too little too late. The ending genuinely pissed me off.

Final Thoughts

Shaman is a film that touts its supposed originality while leaning heavily into possession horror tropes, not showing any originality until the final act. The characters were genuinely unlikable and that made it hard to care about what was going on and empathize with them.

At first, as she undergoes physical and mental rehabilitation, the only trauma she undergoes is what she’s told are the expected side effects of readjusting to our atmosphere: bouts of tinnitus and an occasional nosebleed. She also experiences “antigravity hallucinations” of floating objects, though fairly early on, first-time feature writer/director Jess Varley makes it clear these sights are not just in her head. In general, THE ASTRONAUT eschews the question of whether Sam is just imagining the unsettling events that distress her while she’s alone in that house. It’s not long before they lead her to believe that something may have hitched a ride back to our planet with her.

Varley (who has had small acting roles in OFFSEASON, TAKE BACK THE NIGHT, 2023’s NIGHT SHIFT and others, and contributed to the anthology PHOBIAS) builds some basic there’s-something-outside/inside-the-house tension into THE ASTRONAUT, and Mara does strong work in the title role. As Sam becomes bewildered and creeped out by what’s happening around her–and to her own body–the actress keeps us feeling for her. Sam’s desperation for answers is tempered by her knowledge that admitting something’s wrong will jeopardize her chances of selection for future missions–a simple and understandable motivation at first for not disclosing what’s happening to her.

Yet as the bizarre events escalate, and are witnessed by others, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe Sam’s reluctance to relocate. Nor does her undoubtedly significant scientific background come into play as the action heats up, and she’s reduced to simply running for her life through the bowels of the house. These and the movie’s other settings are shot with a great deal of atmosphere by DP Dave Garbett (EVIL DEAD RISE, ASH VS. EVIL DEAD), and it’s all backed by an effective, sometimes aggressive score by Jacques Brautbar. What’s missing for most of the running time is a sense that movie is about anything more than it appears on the surface, despite a few hints at themes of family. Both Izzy and Sam herself are revealed to be adoptees, the latter not surprising considering that her father, a general who oversaw her mission, is played by Laurence Fishburne.

THE ASTRONAUT does attempt to bestow deeper meaning upon the proceedings with a latecoming story twist, but unfortunately, it results in an abrupt tonal shift that throws the whole film out of whack. It really needed a whole additional act to fully explore this new idea; instead, it’s rushed through quickly, ending the movie at 81 minutes before the final credits and leaving a number of questions dangling. One leaves the movie wondering whether it got heavily pared down in the editing process, or it needed more preparation before the launch button was pushed.