Can we all agree that the next person to randomly slap a “scariest film of the year” label on a horror poster gets to be marched through the streets and flogged, because I’m getting pretty damn tired of seeing it pop up on the advertising for movies more concerned with the subtler aspects of the supernatural. The latest film to fall prey to this infuriating hype is Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, a supernatural drama that attempts to turn the ghost movie on its head by using the usual tropes of the spooky subgenre to take a more experimental look at family drama – which essentially means that bargin basement shocks are not high on the filmmaker’s agenda.
However, while Presence isn’t particularly interested in becoming the next Paranormal Activity, does it’s more arthouse and esoteric leanings succeed in giving ghost movies a new lease of life… or death.
The Payne family – mother Rebecca, father Chris, son Tyler and younger daughter Chole – has just moved into a new suburban house and immediately continue the rather strained relationships that they’ve brought with them from their last place. Chole is currently been going through some trauma as her best friend died mysteriously in her sleep and is rather distraught that it had been callously written off as a drug overdose and she’s getting absolutely no support from Tyler, who has been growing ever more egotistical thanks to a promising swimming career. Not helping at all is Rebecca who not only is an insufferable boy mom who gives her troubled daughter no attention whatsoever, but she’s been committing fraud at her job and all of the above is putting an incredible strain on Chris who has been contemplating leaving his wife.
However, while all four members of the family go about their business as cracks form in their relationships like an egg in an earthquake, unbeknownst to them, a force-like supernatural Presence is haunting their home, floating from room to room and watching them struggle their individual lives. While this spectral voyeur mysteriously treats the Payne’s emotional turmoil like it’s own private reality show, Chole soon starts to sense that there’s an invisible, aimless fifth member of the household that often tidies her books up when her back is turned as she soon starts to believe that it could be her dead friend looking out for her from the other side.
However, as Chloe starts dating the troubled Ryan and the family gets ever closer to imploding, there’s a sense that the Presence is trying to take care of unfinished business before some sort of disaster happens, but what can an amorphous force that can’t leave the house and barely affect physical matter do to help this crumbling unit? Oh, and also: who the hell was it when it was alive?
Anyone hoping for the type of spooky shenanigans usually seen in a Conjuring movie or an Insidious entry is obviously shit out of luck, because the ever inventive and experimental Soderbergh has turned up to tinker with the tropes of the genre rather than abuse them. You see, in a change from the regularly scheduled programming, the director has decided to shoot the whole movie from the point of view of the ghost as it glides around the house, peering as the Payne’s as their lives gradually come apart. Taking the form of a series of vignettes, all shot with disorientating wide angle lens and moved with all the subtle smoothness of a creeping ninja. While this obviously presents a whole wealth of storytelling challenges, this seems exactly what has brought Soderbergh to the table in the first place. How do you not only build a story filled with mystery and twists, but create any form of character when your camera is essentially one of the cast? How do you get close ups, how do you get coverage, how do you manage to deliver the important emotion and plot points to create an actual story? A lot of directors would treat such questions as major obstacles, but you get the feeling that these are the exact reasons why Soderbergh is here in the first place and ypu can tell that he tackles each and every issue with the air of a true experimentalist.
However, while Presence must earn a admiring tip of the hat to its ambitious helmer, in some cases the experiment doesn’t quite work despite the movie nicely channeling the same creeping, autumnal Sixth Sense tone from M. Night Shyamalan’s early era. While David Koepp’s script keeps things basically tied together by a couple of scattered plot threads, there is a slight feeling he’s mining plot from his own directorial effort, Stir Of Echoes and patience is advised for the first half an hour which moves at such a snail’s pace, your mind is in danger of wandering aimlessly as much as the Presence does.
Without the benefit of traditional camera set ups and close ups to carry the emotions of the characters across, the script sketches the family in mostly broad lines with Callina Lang having to do the majority of the heavy lifting as the troubled Chole, but the rest of the family – Lucy Liu’s cold wife, Chris Sullivan’s struggling husband and Eddy Maday’s arrogant Tyler – also pitch in as they each add to the puzzle the movie very gradually pieces together. Is the final product worth it? Well, it depends on what you were expecting to be sitting down to watch.
It’s obvious that Soderbergh respects the genre (don’t think I didn’t spot the Poltergeist font in the end credits, Steven), but he’s kind of undone by his own studio who has marketed the movie as anything but a slow, character based drama with supernatural undertones in an attempt to create an original experience. There are so many nice, subtle touches here – the Presence feeling the need to glide back into Callina’s closet whenever it’s starting to get overwhelmed or it’s rather sad habit of gazing longingly out of a certain window that does pay off until the tragic ending – and a moment with a visiting psychic organically helps set some vital ground rules for the pensive poltergeist. But all of this hard work will doubtlessly go out the window (little in-joke there), especially if you have any disgruntled and vocal members of the audience who have been bamboozled by the poster and are waiting for the movie to actually get going.
While Soderbergh highly experimental take on spooky shenanigans is certain worth a look from fans of the director or those who like a more exploratory kind of filmmaking, despite a few good concepts and a nicely evocative score, I can’t say that Presence is an entirely successful experience beyond its inventive aims. As a result, this POV heavy proves to be fascinating, but a long way from being truly haunting.
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