Review: Presence

Director:  Steven Soderbergh

Stars:  Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Lucy Liu

It seems ludicrous now that we ever entertained the idea that Steven Soderbergh would retire, so persistent is his industrious output. He’s helmed five projects in the last two years alone. One of those is hot on the heels of Presence and out in UK cinemas next month. What’s more admirable is the general hit ratio of what’s offered up (with exceptions, granted). Usually the kernel that hooked him is communicated to us with commensurate enthusiasm or focus, and Soderbergh is always interested.

This latest has grabbed attention for it’s somewhat unique perspective, being shot entirely from the vantage of a spiritual entity that seems confined to the interior of a detached suburban house somewhere in the States. Granted, in the wake of the (under-distributed) Nickel Boys, some of the thunder’s been stolen from it’s ‘first person’ USP, but in such a long and storied career this is the most overtly supernatural tale Soderbergh has ever told, and the closest he has teetered to the horror genre. In truth, however, Presence is more of a sober familial piece with a spectral twist in the telling. In observing an awkwardly played set of dramas from an unseen voyeur’s perspective, we’re invited to contemplate our role at the cinema as viewers, while Soderbergh’s film also comes to feel like a lingering projection from the COVID-era of domestic confinement.

Chris (Chris Sullivan) and Rebecca (Lucy Liu) move into the handsome, spacious home with their two teenagers, Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday), viewed cautiously – yet curiously – by their unseen house guest, who has a fondness for lurking in Chloe’s bedroom closet. From overheard snippets we come to understand that Chloe is reeling from the recent loss of two classmates, leading to the strong insinuation that ‘we’ are the recently departed Nadia. While father Chris is evidently concerned for his daughter’s well-being, it is somewhat glossed over by Rebecca who more keenly dotes on her first born, Tyler. Snippets of Presence pick at Chloe’s sense of neglect in the shadow of the golden child, and her status in the family grows even more fraught as she comes to suspect they are not alone in the house.

Scripted by frequent collaborator (the equally prolific) David Koepp, Presence sometimes struggles to sell itself solidly. With such an intense focus via our (mostly) silent witness, patches of stilted dialogue or performance announce themselves loudly, cracking the verisimilitude. Sullivan, Liu, Liang and Maday are all pretty solid players, but they don’t fully cohere as a unit; no two members of the family ever appear used to one another. This could be entirely intentional of course. A comment, even, on the pervasive sense of isolation within the modern American brood. But, like the hard cuts to black that delineate each scene (a very Haneke-esque affectation), there’s a sense of dislocation between this foursome that threatens to separate them from us as well as each other.

Koepp layers in a handful of red herrings along the way, furthering the idea of family secrets splintering the quarter, and has a little fun playing with the genre aspects of his idea (particularly by inviting a psychic into the mix) but mostly, via Soderbergh’s delicate touch, Presence feels like a quietly sharp observation of suburban malaise. There’s an element of Gus Van Sant about it all, especially whenever the drama hunkers down with the kids and their stoner friend Ryan (West Mulholland). In these passages – perhaps due to the complicit nature of the camera – Presence most resembles Van Sant’s Palme d’Or winning Elephant.

Tonally the sense of detachment and frustrated impotence expressed by our unseen deceased party channels a similar vibe to David Lowery’s expansive requiem A Ghost Story. As in that film there’s a sense that a person is intrinsically tethered to a place. That our homes become part of us and vice versa. The psychological echoes of lockdown are all over this one, connecting it also to another recent Koepp and Soderbergh’s collab; the snappy tech thriller Kimi. In that film Zoë Kravitz’s Angela suffered acute agoraphobia which made any expedition outside of her apartment an exercise in panic and exhaustion. Presence continues a line of enquiry about being forcibly anchored in place. Stuck, if you will, without the means to extricate or communicate one’s position.

One of the anxieties here, then – ironically – is stasis. Something Soderbergh has very little experience of. Presence bumps into a few walls and hurdles as it swoops around its suburban prison locale, and whether it’s the text or the cast there are some stumbles in the delivery. But come the end, having resisted going big for most of the picture, Soderbergh successfully lands one hell of a punchline, and scores his first full-body chill. It’s heartening in a climate of incessant cheap scares to see a filmmaker save it all up for one, calculated denouement. It’s even more pleasing that he pulls it off.