The camera is a ghost in Steven Soderbergh’s highly effective, experiential haunting drama “Presence.” The filmmaker traps the audience in a beautiful suburban house, letting us wander through the rooms with this curious creature, in and out of delicate conversations, as we try to blindly piece together a puzzle.
Often in haunted house movies where a new family moves in and starts sensing strange things, the ghost knows exactly what they want – usually their own home. It does not have such a clear purpose of presence. It is more confused, wandering around like an amnesiac and scanning the surroundings. However, sometimes big emotions erupt and things shake out violently.
Mostly, they go unnoticed. They see the chipper real estate agent preparing for a showing, the painting crew, one of whom believes there is something around, and finally see all the complexities of the family and its dynamics. Lucy Liu’s mother, Rebecca, is a rich, successful, Type-A woman who is overly focused on the success of her eldest, a teenage boy named Tyler. The father, Chris, is a more nurturing man, concerned about his teenage daughter Chloe after the unexpected death of her friend.
There is a family drama going on inside the house, some of which will be understood in the end. We hear Rebecca drunkenly telling Tyler that everything she does is for him. We hear Chris talking to someone on the phone about his imaginary partner being involved in some illegal activity and whether or not they will still be together after a legal separation. We often see Tyler with his head buried in his phone. And then there’s Chloe: sad, rebellious Chloe, who is the only person to notice that they’re not alone. After all, she’s recently suffered a stroke, and soon she’s starting a thing with Tyler’s floppy-haired, best friend Ryan. They make out, drink, do drugs and Chloe gets a chance to escape her thoughts – at least for a while. Ryan looks straight out of a mid-90s movie, he’s an angry, distressed kid who convinces Chloe that he has the power to decide how this will all turn out.
“Presence” was written by David Koepp combining some of Soderbergh’s pages, imagining what a ghost would be like. He is also technically both the director and cinematographer of this project. It’s a slow-motion experience that creeps up on you, especially once you see how it happens. Personally, I didn’t see any of this coming and I couldn’t have imagined the emotional wave it would bring at the end. It’s a heady experiment that transcends its somewhat gimmicky-on-paper premise – something that Soderbergh manages to do alarmingly well and regularly.
January releases often aren’t the flashiest. Apart from the annual list of awards contenders, it is often a dumping ground. “Presence” is a film I first saw at the Sundance Film Festival last January, and yet, even a year later, the coolness and admiration remains in my mind like a ghost that won’t go away, While many other films have vanished from memory. This is a rare gem in the January mix.
Neon releases “Presence” in theaters Friday, rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “teenage drinking, drug content, sexuality, language, violence.” Running time: 85 minutes. Three out of four stars.
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