Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut is an emotionally intense adaptation of a memoir by writer Lidia Yuknavitch. As the narrator states at the beginning, it’s a disjointed account as it adheres not to orderly chronology but to the emotional lows of a woman’s formative years. The result is highly impressionistic yet vivid with a powerful mastery of imagery. It’s astounding work for a first-time director and one of the best book adaptations I’ve seen in a while, capturing unspeakable trauma and pain that can hardly be articulated in words.

As a teenaged girl in the 1970s, Lidia is sexually abused by her strict and domineering father Mike. Her alcoholic mother turns a blind eye to what is happening and Lidia finds solace in her private journals and through swimming. She is close to her older sister Claudia until the latter runs away from home due to being abused as well. Lidia’s own escape from the household comes in the form of a swimming scholarship to college. In Texas, she revels in her newfound freedom but still traumatized by her memories and her overindulgence in alcohol, sex and drugs puts an end to her academic and sports pursuits. She meets a sensitive, musically-talented boy Phillip and soon marries him. However Phillip’s passivity causes her to continuously lash out and provoke him. When she gets pregnant, she moves to live with Claudia, rekindling their relationship. The baby is stillborn and her marriage with Phillip ends amicably. Afterwards, a friend talks her into joining a writing course organized by Ken Kesey to help deal with her grief and from there, her career as a writer takes off.

The ephemeral, disjointed style successfully hides that this is in effect a biographical film. This lets it skip past the formulaic conventions of the genre and makes it easily one of the best biographies I’ve ever seen. Stewart tackles the difficult subject of parental sexual abuse with provocative imagery that captures the essence of the pain and the intensity of complicated emotions. The water motif is ever present, with ripples and waves standing in for body parts and sexual acts. In this way, she is able to avoid sexually graphic scenes and any worries that this might be exploitative. It’s uncanny how perfectly she manages the balance and you can tell how much she cares about getting the subject right. If you’re an actual fan of Yuknavitch and expect this to be a complete account of her life, this film might be a disappointment. Key characters simply appear with no introduction and it can be bewildering how one phase of her life leads to another. But the film is about the abuse at her father’s hands, how it has damaged her as a person and how she has healed from it and at this, it excels.

In tandem with the intimate close-up cinematography and the sporadic entries of Lidia’s personal journal, the film lets us into her inner consciousness. It is never so crass as to drectly point things out. Yet a simple glance from Lidia at Kesey’s friendly hand on her shoulder is enough to communicate how warily sensitive she has become to male attention. Her relationships with her family are handled so realistically as when she and her sister indirectly address the issue of their father’s abuse. There’s no victim blaming as we can understand how impossible it is to talk out loud about it. In the end, when she is finally able to talk about it directly to her latest partner, the small, matter of fact admission is so ordinary and at the same time represents such a satisfying triumph. I will note that this is a very singular story of an extraordinary woman’s life. Many will no doubt be tempted to call this inspiring but it would be unreasonable to expect that most victims of abuse to be as talented as the real life Yuknavitch and be able to reinvent herself so successfully.

Quite a few actors have attempted to make the transition to being a director, but I can think of few examples as successful as this one. I was amused when the opening credits displayed so many logos, suggesting that Stewart had a hard time getting funding for it from a variety of different sources. The result is so outstanding that it’s feels unfair that it was slighted for any major awards. I’m certain that Stewart will have a far easier time getting funding for her projects from here on out and I look forward to what she will be making.