Adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir about surviving childhood sexual abuse and finding an outlet for her pain in writing, the drama also features Thora Birch, Jim Belushi and Earl Cave.

On the contrary, I only make note of the laziest presumptions that people might create for Stewart’s debut because of the visceral fearlessness with which she defies them. There isn’t a single millisecond of this movie that doesn’t bristle with the raw energy of an artist who’s found the permission she needed to put her whole being into every frame,

Imogen Poots seizes the screen as Lidia Yuknavitch, who embraces swimming and sex and drugs and anger, all to make herself whole.