Presence
Steven Soderbergh brings us a ghost story told from the perspective of the ghost.
Something other: Callina Liang
Image courtesy of Picturehouse Entertainment.
Few mainstream filmmakers are as experimental as Steven Soderbergh. Or as prolific. Since his retirement in 2013, he has directed nine features (including Presence), has produced a further twelve pictures and directed three TV series and one comedy web show. And since Presence premiered at Sundance last year, he has already directed the spy thriller Black Bag, which opens next month, and is due to start filming The Christophers with Ian McKellen in a week or two. The man is unstoppable.
Presence, a low-budget novelty item with a small cast of characters, takes the genre of the haunted house thriller and tells it from the POV of ‘the presence.’ This gives Soderbergh full rein to exploit his fondness for the tracking shot, with his camera gliding all over a large suburban residence in New Jersey. What is smart about his one-trick pony is that the presence’s motive is unclear and it is only through the dynamic of the Payne family that everything falls into place.
After the presence has rattled around on its own upstairs and down in its empty, commodious abode, a real estate agent turns up to show off the property. The first family, dominated by Lucy Liu’s hard-nosed businesswoman, are won over by the size and location and snap up the house immediately. As the weeks pass, the decorators move in, although one refuses to enter a particular room for unknown reasons. Then cracks materialise in the domestic fabric, all of which are observed by the unseen presence, and are nicely teased out by David Koepp’s screenplay. There is considerable familial tension, the details of which are never forced, but which are allowed to unfold naturally, through a private confession, a telephone call or an unguarded comment.
Visually lush and crisply photographed by Soderbergh himself, the film eschews the shadowy clichés of many a haunted house title, drawing the viewer in through the unexplained agenda and hissy fits of its unseen protagonist. The victims of its actions are well played by the main cast members, with Callina Liang shouldering the lion’s share of the emotional baggage as Chloe, who is recovering from the death of her best friend (possibly from an overdose). Chloe is also the most aware of her family, sensing that there is something watching her, not to mention something rearranging her school books...
The problem with Presence is that while it keeps the viewer engaged, it is through curiosity rather than any emotional connection. It is terribly slight. Not only does the film offer us a very slim running time, but a series of long dissolves between scenes, which slows the narrative down. There is one deeply disturbing sequence, but that alone is no excuse for a feature-length movie. At times there is an air of David Lowery’s ridiculously over-praised A Ghost Story (2017) about it all, albeit being nowhere near as pretentious or boring. Just don’t expect to be scared, moved or thrilled.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, Julia Fox, Natalie Woolams-Torres.
Dir Steven Soderbergh, Pro Julie M. Anderson and Ken Meyer, Screenplay David Koepp, Ph Steven Soderbergh, Pro Des April Lasky, Ed Steven Soderbergh, Music Zack Ryan, Costumes Marci Rodgers.
Sugar23/Extension 765-Picturehouse Entertainment.
84 mins. USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 24 January 2025. Cert. 15.
