Welcome to See/Hear, InsideHook's deep dive into the month's most important cultural happenings, pop and otherwise. Every month, we round up the biggest upcoming movie, TV and album releases, ask some cool people to tell us what they've been into lately, make you a playlist we guarantee you'll have on heavy rotation and recommend a classic (or unduly overlooked) piece of pop culture we think is worth revisiting.
Kristen Stewart is returning to the big screen, but this time as a director. Her directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, is a force of nature and a piercing adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's 2011 novel of the same name. Stewart's psychological drama follows a young woman (Imogen Poots) who escapes trauma through writing and swimming. It's a challenging watch but a poignant perspective on addiction and motherhood through the eyes of a queer woman.
Clea Duvall directed 2020's Happiest Season. As well as Stewart the film also stars Mackenzie Davis, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy, Mary Holland, Victor Garber, and Mary Steenburgen. Stewart plays Abby Holland, a lesbian who has been dating Harper Caldwell (Davis) for a year. Not a fan of Christmas, Abby is invited to spend the holidays with Harper's conservative family who it turns out Harper hasn't come out to yet.
It rooted slowly but firmly, like all "cult classics." It wasn't so much the story of her abusive childhood and the liberation she found in sex and substances, swimming, and writing as it was a polemic against the notion of a fixed past. Its emphatic embrace of subjective experience-celebrating a certain ownership and reframing of your own history-over static, objective fact made it a kind of guide. Words to live by.
Benicio del Toro, who in the morning had received a Golden Globe nomination for his supporting role in " One Battle After Another," was one of a clutch of celebrities who filed into the Fort Mason Center on Monday night. Also present were Kristen Stewart ("Love Lies Bleeding"), Wunmi Mosaku (" Sinners"), Boots Riley ("Sorry to Bother You"), Regina Hall ("One Battle After Another") and fashion designer Zac Posen, who was hired as Gap ' s creative director last year.
What we create needs to come from the things that we want. We need to design our own desire instead of being told how the fuck to feel by movies that are never changing and always the same. I have figuratively broken teeth learning that shoving into fear instead of backing away from it is key. I try to let this seep into how I spend literally all my time.
A biopic that skips along the surface of its subject, deriving cliched psychological insight from its traumatized source, The Chronology Of Water sees Kristen Stewart liquify Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir into a expressionistic slurry. In her feature debut as writer-director, Stewart takes explicit pains to explicitly render Yuknavitch's pain on screen, drenching the swimmer-turned-writer's life-spanning childhood abuse, young-adult hedonism, and professional success-in over-styled and overindulgent imagery.
On December 4, the IndieWire Honors Winter 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year's best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the Los Angeles event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers. The first time most of us saw IndieWire Honors Maverick Award winner Kristen Stewart was in David Fincher's 2002 thriller "Panic Room," as the terrified 12-year-old whose mother (Jodie Foster) whisks her to safety as an intruder terrorizes their home.
As awards season ramps up, Chanel is continuing its tradition of supporting women in film beyond red carpet dressing. Less than two months after co-hosting its 10th annual Through Her Lens program - a three-day mentorship event attended by the likes of Mariska Hargitay, Meghann Fahy, and Lily Allen - the luxury fashion house threw another star-studded affair for a similar cause.
