Kristen talks to Variety about writing 'The Chronology of Water'

 

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Most biopics persuade you to empathize with the main character. But as actress-turned-writer/director Kristen Stewart explains, her screenplay adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir “The Chronology of Water” allows you to virtually become the protagonist.

“[Lidia] invites you to project yourself into her book,” she says. In a similar way, the film presents the thoughts of a woman (Imogen Poots) overcoming childhood abuse and adulthood addiction through sound design that places viewers inside her head. “Some of the emotional triggers are specific to her life, but I think they’re [also] invitations to remember your own. I wanted to make a movie that was not just about one person, but was kind of about all of us.”

“Water” is one of several fall features with scripts adapted from the lives of real protagonists, down-to-earth and extraordinary in equal measure. Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”) explores the tortured soul of a musical icon in “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” Derek Cianfrance (Oscar nominee for “Sound of Metal”) and Kirt Gunn portray a criminal with a heart of gold in “Roofman” and David Michôd (“Animal Kingdom”) and Mirrah Foulkes show the determination and survival skills of a female boxing pioneer in “Christy.”

Stewart’s feature writing/directing debut, which premiered as a Cannes Un Certain Regard selection in May and hits U.S. theaters in December, is the most impressionistic film of the bunch. The project has consumed her thoughts for the past eight years, in part due to the time she needed to raise “purely independent” financing. “I reached out to Lidia [and] told her, ‘Please don’t give this to anyone who’s going to voiceover it to death or provide a three-act structure that’s much easier to finance than the movie that we could make.

“I always wanted to make sure that you could watch this movie with your eyes closed, because I wanted it to feel like a haunted house,” Stewart says. “I wanted [the protagonist] to feel like she was sitting next to you in a theater whispering in your ear, giving you a little more emotional context.”

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