'Presence' review: Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp deliver a uniquely thrilling ghost story
What if a ghost could tell its own story but not speak? That is the wildly compelling premise of Presence. Director Steven Soderbergh reteams with Kimi screenwriter David Koepp for an unconventional haunted house story, creating a film that is sharply funny, beguiling, a bit chilling, and ultimately sweet.
And it all begins with a dizzying opening shot.
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The camera is a character in Presence
Presence opens within a house on the break of sunrise. It's still dark inside as the camera swans around from kitchen to hallway, up the stairs and through the bedrooms and back again. There's a slight fish-eye lens effect, even in the darkness, turning the corners of a house into ominous shadows. And the movement of the camera suggests not some passive viewer, but a perspective, a presence.
The next scene is established with daylight. The presence watches (as do we) as a posh real estate agent (Julia Fox) arrives to show the space to the Payne family. The mother, Rebecca (Lucy Liu), is immediately sold, gushing about how the location means her golden child Tyler (newcomer Eddy Maday) could be in the best school district to follow his trajectory as a trophy-winning swimmer. Meanwhile, dad Chris (This is Us' Chris Sullivan) worries the move would be hard on their other teen, Chloe (Foundation's Callina Liang), who has recently lost her best friend to a presumed drug overdose.
The inherent conflict between Lui's smothering Boy Mom and Sullivan's earnestly vulnerable Girl Dad plays out in passive aggression and outright arguments, all with the wandering eye of the presence floating around as a silent witness. But this being, whose identity, name, and gender are unclear for much of the movie, is most focused on Chloe, who is alone in her grief — until she's not.
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The point-of-view perspective in horror is chiefly used to inspire fear in the audience, implying a sinister force or slasher is sizing up a potential victim. But here, the camera's movement conveys no ill intent, in part because of the way the presence tends to hide in Chloe's closet, as if it is scared, not aiming to scare. Props to Soderbergh, who also serves as the film's editor and cinematographer. Long takes that move from one room to another, following conflict and conversation, create a pulsing vulnerability for a character we cannot see or hear, yet understand all the same. I was in awe that when the camera pans from one hurting family member to another, I could feel the yearning of the presence to be seen, to join in, to scream. Presence is extraordinary for all it tells through its moving camerawork alone.
Presence's cast is extraordinary
Of course, all Soderbergh's sublime cinematography could have been for nought if it weren't for a cast that could grasp the concept. As it is, I'll be absolutely shocked if Presence doesn't get a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination.
The film demands actors play out long takes that sometimes involve complex choreography. Within that, they need their lines to land on camera but casually. And beyond that, there's the creeping shift in behavior as the presence makes itself known. Some in the house begin to sense it, and their gaze must connect to the lens in a way that is present but not concrete. This way we believe that what they see appears as nothing, as the camera will never leave the presence's perspective to reveal the living's. Liang has the heaviest lift here, as she engages most directly with the ghost, sometimes sensing it, but also realizing how it has the power to move things in her room. Sharing this revelation with her family only sparks a fight and more violent paranormal activity.
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For her part, Liu is perfectly cold as a corporate shark with a ruthless sense of right and wrong, delivering a monologue to her smirking son that's so electrifyingly frank it sparked laughs from a shocked audience. Sullivan is her foil, playing a human teddy bear desperate to save his daughter from a despair he grapples to comprehend. Maday sizzles as a cruel jock who has little patience for his freaky sister, while Liang shoulders the bulk of the film, balancing her scenes of ghostly intrusion with meditations on grief and a budding secret romance with "the coolest guy in school" (West Mulholland in Jared Leto circa My So-Called Life mode). Together, they feel like a real family, the dialogue current and crisply natural, grounding the real so the uncanny hits all the harder.
Presence is a welcomed genre twist
Soderbergh has played in various genres from heist movies like Ocean's Eleven and Logan Lucky, to psychological thrillers like Unsane and Kimi, the espionage actioner Haywire, and the sexy comedies that make up the Magic Mike trilogy. While technically Presence is a horror movie in conceit, Soderbergh doesn't feel bound by the demands to make it spooky. In fact, the house is not remotely creepy. Admittedly, the music has a flare of whining instruments that recall gothic horror movies of the the 1940s, but this clashes with the girly-pop aesthetic of Chloe's bedroom, effectively underlining how the presence feels out of place here.
Credit to Koepp, who like Soderbergh has lept from one genre to another, with screenplay credits on everything from Jurassic Park to Mission: Impossible, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and my personal favorite, the dark diva comedy Death Becomes Her. But his most relevant work to Presence is the woefully underrated Stir of Echoes, a 1999 horror movie, where Kevin Bacon plays a man with newly awakened abilities to commune with the dead. Now, Presence isn't as overtly eerie as Stir of Echoes, which is a more traditional ghost story in that sense. But they share a similar sensibility in Koepp's carefully constructed characters and final act twist. Essentially, his thumb print is clear.
Koepp employs genre conventions like poltergeist activity: objects moved when the living aren't looking or rooms trashed before their very eyes. But because of Soderbergh's committed POV shots, these actions don't feel like they're intended to scare as much as they are to express a wordless frustration. Likewise, when the family brings in a medium, Lisa (Natalie Woolams-Torres), she looks nothing like you might expect. Rather than a frail white woman in black witchy attire, this supernatural communicator is a robust woman of color, wearing a warm flannel and jeans, as if she's just come from her job as a barista or a kindergarten teacher. These subtle tweaks give a thrilling sense of possibility to Presence, promising the audience it won't play by the rules and so the film could go anywhere. And where it goes it is not only satisfyingly surprising, but smartly sentimental.
In the end, Presence is a remarkable union of a clever concept and a superb execution. In the wrong hands, fumbled or flashy camerawork could have crushed the character building of the ghost. Soderbergh's steady hand is so mindful in its performance that you can practically feel the expressions of a face you cannot see. The cast expertly builds a believable and complex family bond while effortlessly completing choreographed blocking. And Koepp delivers a final act that is stomach-churningly tense yet tender. All of this collides to make a sublimely realized ghost story that is easily one of the best films of the year.
Shame you'll have to wait until next year to see it.
Presence was reviewed out of its international premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is scheduled for theatrical release in the US Jan. 17, 2025.
