Film, Film Review

REVIEW: Presence (2024) dir. Steven Soderbergh

The spirit of Soderbergh

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I have in the past referred to Steven Soderbergh as the Robert Pollard of filmmaking, on account of both artists’ firehose-like output; in the years since Soderbergh’s short-lived 2012 “retirement” alone, he has directed more feature films than Quentin Tarantino has in his entire career, plus two cable miniseries, a project for the short-lived streaming platform Quibi, an off-Broadway play, and the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony. Upon reflection, however, the proper comparison may actually be Elvis Costello, whose prolificacy is matched by his love of genre-hopping. Soderbergh has worked in almost every conceivable mode of filmmaking, from splashy summer blockbusters and award-friendly dramas to Hitchcock homages and experimental indie comedies. His latest is perhaps his most surprising exercise at all. With Presence, Soderbergh dips his toe into the January horror-dump haunted house milieu– albeit with one of his trademark stylistic twists.

The setup is pure Blumhouse, as a seemingly clean-cut nuclear family– mom Rebekah (Lucy Liu), dad Chris (Chris Sullivan), and teen kids Chloe and Tyler (Callina Liang and Eddie Maday)– move into their suburban dream home. It’s a lovely place, tastefully decorated with enough room for the four of them, but something is undeniably off: items seem to fall of the shelves of their own volition; the painters mysteriously refuse to enter the room that will be Chloe’s; and Chloe herself seems to sense that something is amiss, occasionally glancing furtively directly into the camera.

That last point brings us to the principal conceit of Soderbergh’s latest formal experiment. Chloe look into the camera because the camera is the ghost. Like last year’s Nickel Boys, Presence is shot entirely in the first person, placing us in the eye holes of the spectral presence haunting this poor family. We join the ghost before its hauntees even arrive, listlessly drifting from room to room, as if waiting for its cue to begin the movie. Once the house is populated, the ghost takes the role of a fly on the wall, listening in on the family in their most private moments. The spirit is timid at first, but as it (and we) come to understand the dynamic of the family, its actions become bolder.

In case it’s not clear, Presence is not your typical jump-out-go-boo creepfest, a fact which I’m sure will perturb its fair share of unsuspecting moviegoers; there are some harrowing scenes, but most of them involve the harm that humans can inflict on each other than any sort of Amityville-style malevolence. Rather, it belongs to the lineage of such melancholy ghost stories as The Changeling or All of Us Strangers, in which the living are tasked with bringing spirits to peace, and vice versa. As the story progresses, we begin to get an inkling of who or what this presence might be– Chloe is mourning a dead friend, and a medium senses something about a window– but the exact shape of things doesn’t become clear until the film’s final moments. 

What is perhaps most striking about the film is not the visual gimmick per se, but rather the way in which Soderbergh uses it to strip past the artifice of your typical haunted house film. Throughout, passing cars can be seen cruising by outside the window, their motors idly humming in the background, reminding us that this is just a normal house in a normal suburb. Scenes begin earlier and end later than they might ordinarily, giving us relatively lengthy scenes of characters watching TV or clicking around on the internet. Ghosts, one would imagine, spend a goodly amount of their existence killing time, and the passages in which we float around the hallways with the titular presence are oddly relaxing. I was reminded at times of last year’s “ambient slasher” In a Violent Nature; like that film, Soderbergh seems intent on showing us the moments between the scenes.

The film’s naturalism, however, is at odds with a strangely overwritten screenplay, penned by journeyman blockbuster screenwriter David Koepp. Throughout, every character says exactly what they are feeling in strangely exclamatory monologues, as if the audience can’t be trusted to read between the lines. Rebekah, for example, shares a much closer bond with her son than with her daughter; we know this because she clasps Tyler’s hands in the first act and tells him, “I’ve never felt as close to any human being as I do with you.” Later, in a climactic scene, a character narrates their own actions and motivations as if they are a villain in an old-time radio drama. Presence is a film filled with poignant pauses and heartbreaking silence; it’s just when the characters open their mouths that we have a problem.

Presence is, seemingly by design, minor Soderbergh, almost defiant in its muted, low-key inversion of horror movie tropes. But minor Soderbergh is still a whole lot more interesting than a whole lot of directors at their flashiest, and the sheer gumption and originality of Presence is a pleasure to take in. January is traditionally a month of big, dumb, assembly-line horror; that Soderbergh used this annual blast of gleeful schlock to sneak out this sad, experimental little film is one of the most subversive moves in a career full of them. Presence isn’t perfect, but it is strange and unique– and even if you don’t like it, Soderbergh’s got another one for you in a couple of months.

Presence
2024
dir. Steven Soderbergh
85 min.

Opens Friday, 1/24 @ Somerville Theatre, Kendall Square Cinema, and all local AMCs

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