Presence

A realtor, Cece (Julia Fox, "Uncut Gems"), dashes about a house minutes before a family of four arrives to view it before it has been put on the market. It's clear that the family matriarch, Rebekah (Lucy Liu), calls the shots and she is adamant in talking to her husband Chris (Chris Sullivan, TV's 'This Is Us') that they must buy this house before others see it to get their son, high school senior Tyler (newcomer Eddy Maday), into the right school. But it is their daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang), who will feel the biggest impact of the move when she begins to sense a "Presence."

Laura's Review: B

During a Q&A after a screening of the movie, director/cinematographer/editor Steven Soderbergh told us that he once had a house sitter report having seen a woman down the hallway enter their bedroom. She called out, thinking it was the director's wife, before realizing that they were not there. Some investigation revealed that a woman had committed suicide in that room and a neighbor told the filmmaker that he believed the woman's daughter had killed her. The Soderberghs even gave their ghost a name and she became the genesis of his latest film, the idea given to writer David Koepp ("Stir of Echoes," "Kimi") to flesh out, Soderbergh's other major contribution that the story be told from the spirit's point of view.

Our introduction to the presence is a rushed tour of most of the house, the spirit apparently panicking as people begin to approach from outside. Later, when Chris directs painters inside the still empty home, one of them refuses to go into the upstairs front bedroom, the room we were first in, as another painter changes its color from a dark peach to a deep slate blue. The next time we see the room, Chloe has made it her own. But when she gets up off of her bed to take a shower in her en suite bathroom, the books she's left on her bed rise into the air before being stacked on her bureau. As the presence's POV (the camera) retreats behind her slatted closet doors, Chloe comes out of the bathroom, sees that her things have moved, and screams.

Worried about his daughter, as her best friend Nadia and another female acquaintance have recently been found dead in separate incidents, both overdoses, Chris talks to Rebekah about possibly getting her therapy, but Rebekah insists all Chloe needs is time. 'Your advice always corresponds to having to do nothing at all,' he snaps back. This is a family clearly divided, mother favoring son while dad is closer to his daughter. Mom's also done something illegal, although we don't know exactly what, telling her son that she'd do anything for him. Chris will ask for advice on a phone call outside on the back deck, asking about his culpability if his spouse has done something wrong.

When the favored son returns home from school one day with the good-looking Ryan (West Mulholland), he makes an arbitrary stop at his sister's door for introductions, clearly impressed with his new friendship, but Ryan cozies up to Chloe when Tyler isn't around, even confiding that her brother 'has a mean streak,' telling her about a horrible prank on a young woman he's set in motion. The two begin to make out, but when things get hot and heavy, Chloe's closet begins to rumble, its shelves and hangers collapsing to the floor. She finally confides in her family at dinner, telling them she believes Nadia is in their home. Each family member reacts in the ways we've come to expect, only Chris actually doing something. He calls CeCe who tells him that there have been no reports of any hauntings in their house but offers to have her sister, Lisa (Natalie Woolams-Torres), a woman sensitive to the paranormal, come and check things out.

Using the presence's POV makes the audience complicit in spying on a family and eavesdropping on their secrets more than the typical subjective point of view, the presence aware of something we are not, guiding us toward a horrifying reality. It is an effective bit of trickery, Soderbergh successfully turning his camera into a character. His actual actors form an ensemble that comes across as a real family, the inexperienced Maday and relative newcomer Liang making strong impressions along with their veteran costars, Liang especially good reacting to her director's camera as an unseen presence while Liu is Tiger Mom to Sullivan's Elephant Dad. But while Koepp's twisty climax, one which many may see coming, works in the moment, once the film is over a number of questions will likely be raised regarding the somewhat far-fetched premise (and a stunt), one which piles genre conventions high while negating something the otherwise astute Lisa put forth in her analysis of the family's situation.

With "Presence," Soderbergh creates ghostly chills, but the human elements Koepp's written both explaining and resolving the film's mystery edge uncomfortably close to nonsensical. Still, Soderbergh's creeping camera expresses urgency, demanding that we follow.

Neon releases "Presence" in theaters on 1/24/25.