By Paul Salfen AMFM Magazine
When Kristen Stewart called, neither Thora Birch nor Jim Belushi needed to read the script. They simply said yes.
That alone tells you everything about the gravitational pull of The Chronology of Water, Stewart’s long-gestating, emotionally volcanic feature directorial debut adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s shattering 2011 memoir. Imogen Poots delivers a career-redefining performance as Lidia, a competitive swimmer fleeing an abusive childhood through water, sex, drugs, and eventually the written word while Birch and Belushi play two of the most complicated figures in her orbit.
Sitting down with AMFM at the film’s festival premiere, the actors were still buzzing from the experience of working on a project that feels less like a movie-making and more like communal exorcism.
“I didn’t even let my agent finish the sentence,” Belushi laughs. “Kristen Stewart wants to send you a script? Just say yes. I don’t care if there’s no money. I want to make this one.”
Birch, who shares several wrenching scenes opposite Belushi as Lidia’s fractured parents, felt the same immediacy. “When Kristen calls and says, ‘Hey, I’ve got this movie…’ the answer is already yes. And then you show up and realize it’s shot on 16mm, it’s punk-rock arthouse, and somehow it’s the most nurturing set you’ve ever been on.”
That paradox calm presence, raw material is exactly what makes The Chronology of Water so special. Cinematographer Corey Robson’s serene steadiness combined with Stewart’s fearless vision meant actors often forgot the camera was even rolling.
“You barely notice the crew,” Birch says. “It felt like we were living it, not performing it. I had a great time being that miserable,” she deadpans, drawing laughs. “It was awesome.”
The misery, of course, is earned. Yuknavitch’s memoir is a non-linear assault of trauma, addiction, and reclamation, and Stewart honors every jagged shard. One of the film’s most powerful threads is Lidia’s impossible, necessary relationship with her abusive father (Belushi). In one scene, adult Lidia sits across from him in a diner, years of violence hanging in the air like smoke, yet something like grace flickers between them.
“I asked Kristen, ‘Why am I not jumping across the table and choking him?’” Belushi recalls. “And she said, ‘Because even if she never speaks to this man again for the rest of her life, it’s still a relationship. So why not try to find a way back?’ That blew me away. I don’t know if I could do it. But watching this character find peace… it’s inspiring.”
For Birch, the film’s greatest gift is its refusal to soften the ugliness. “Life shit sucks for all of us,” she says, echoing a line from the book. “The question is: What are you going to do about it?”
Eight years in the making, shot on grainy 16mm with a soundtrack that feels like it’s coming from inside your nervous system, The Chronology of Water is the rare film that announces a major filmmaker has arrived while never feeling like a “a directorial debut.” Stewart has called the memoir “holy” to her; on screen, that reverence is palpable.
“I didn’t feel like I was in on her vision while we were shooting,” Birch admits. “Then I saw the movie and I was floored. One reviewer said, ‘Homegirl can direct,’ and I thought, Yeah. That sums it up perfectly.”
When asked what advice they’d give young actors hoping to work on something this fearless, the answers are vintage Birch and Belushi.
Belushi: “Get out of the business. Seriously. You don’t get paid for the gig you get paid for the drive home going, ‘I should have, I should have…’ It never gets better.”
Birch, laughing: “My advice is never take advice. But if you’re going to ignore me, then just keep doing it until you don’t love it anymore. The day you stop loving it, walk away. Until then, stay.”
As the conversation ends, both actors circle back to the same hope for audiences: that they leave the theater understanding the radical power of telling your own story, no matter how ugly, how fragmented, how unspeakable.
In Kristen Stewart’s fearless hands, Lidia Yuknavitch’s battle cry has become a cinematic lightning. And for Thora Birch and Jim Belushi, getting struck by it was the easiest yes of their careers.
The Chronology of Water is now seeking U.S. distribution following acclaimed premieres at Telluride and Toronto. When it hits theaters, do not miss it.
