Unlike anything many have ever seen before, convolutedly excellent, with a slow burn-like atmosphere is precisely what makes Presence the cinematic enigma that it is. This film is not simply genre bending, it is a complete malformation of categorisation, which has left a slew of mixed reviews in its wake. However, forgoing the ruse stirred by the clever marketing and trickery, Presence is precisely the provocatively dense and thoughtfully crafted film that will beremembered for long to come.
Presence follows itself; a ghostly apparition, spirit, a higher being, as it weaves in and out of a family home witnessing the everyday. The family in question is made up of the hardworking, power-hungry matriarch Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and her comparatively gentle husband Chris (Chris Sullivan). Together they have two teenagers, Tyler (Eddy Madday), who seems to take after his mother's harshness, and Chloe (Callina Liang), an alert young adolescent who is in the midst of heartbreak after her best friend recently died.
The film is shot entirely from the perspective of the 'presence', with the point of view angle goading the presence's autonomy to belong almost entirely to the family dynamic. As such, we only see the household through the eyes of this phantom character. Whilst details are saved for spoilers sake, the mute presence can only show the audience what it is a witness to, in turn forming a puzzle-like story of what is exactly going on.
This idea of a spectre granting us a gaze into the cinematic world is a large part of Presences' charm. The fresh and innovative take on a traditional ghost story, using this contemporary lens — both figuratively and literally — allows for a raw, authentic boost to be thrust onto the entire film. Just as the 'presence' itself takes in the actions of the family it watches, we too are granted this immediate, concentrated peek into the doings of the film's subjects.
Presence's tactical experience is made all the more rich by the applaudable performances from all. Liu excels as a powerhouse mother whose complex coldness is enacted with a sense of integrity and believability. Following this is the role of Chris, portrayed by Sullivan, whom perfectly compliments Liu's emotive tonality. Lastly is the onscreen parent's kin, Tyler and Chloe, which are both played with a level of maturity that should be far beyond both the young actor's abilities, but the pair have proven that their acting chops are akin to that of actors with decades upon decades of experience.
Whilst Presence disturbs and disconcerts, particularly through the final act, the film is not overtly 'horror-coded', with the ghostly entity not serving its predicted, expected purpose. In a sense, the film weaponizes the presence itself as a filmmaking device to tell the story, rather than material, or even a means to simply frighten. Ghosts by nature are indeed eerie, but in Presence, the matter of the spirit is much more dimensional that what the subject typically provides.
It is this continuous toying of expectations that speaks to director Steven Soderbergh and writer, David Koepp's, unique talents. Presence is not simple, instead, its alert to its own emotional hue, its revelations are thought-provoking and it certainly requires more than a single screening to digest the intense complexity of it all.
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