Presence

The snappy, somewhat snarky way to sum up Steven Soderbergh's newest and most formally interesting film in a spell is "A Ghost Story meets Nickel Boys, minus the devastating humanity". But more than reducing what makes Presence unique into a Mad Libs born of social media, that description trivializes and undersells a highly successful experiment which brings together multiple storytelling techniques and dramatic conceits to tell a satisfying if not wholly unique story.

The audience experiences the entire movie from the POV of a spirit trapped in a suburban New Jersey house, coinciding with the arrival of a new family into the seemingly empty abode. Practically, this means each scene consists of a single shot moving around the house, taking only the paths available to a corporeal being, which is congruous with the realization this spirit can interface with the real world, albeit to a limited degree. The spirit wanders, seemingly unsure of why it's here, but quickly takes an interest in Chloe (Callina Liang), even making a few attempts to let her know of its presence, lending credence to Chloe's eventual assertion that it must be the spirit of her recently deceased friend Nadia. As it observes the family, we learn much about the stress they're all under, which helps to explain the various ways they all react to the suspicion they're not alone in their house.

While a whole movie from the first-person isn't new, it's rare enough to keep it a fresh and exciting approach to storytelling, and I don't think there's been a ghost story told in this style before, despite being such a natural fit. Soderbergh of course utilizes some classic poltergeist imagery, such as floating objects and decorations torn off the wall and mysterious noises. But even when dealing in cliches, he reinvents them, as seeing such events from the spirit's "eyes" causes us to identify with the deliberate fury and raw emotion and even sadness behind them. To say nothing of the cool new wrinkle he adds whenever the spirit is trying to get the attention of the family, be it the more sensing Chloe or her oblivious brother Tyler (Eddy Maday): an infrasound pulsing that shakes the whole screen, the desperate scream of an entity without a voice.

Which isn't to say everything here works. For one, at the most basic level, he failed to find an elegant way in and out of scenes. He settled on cutting to a few seconds of silent blackness to indicate the passage of time, be it a few hours or a few days. The sharp cuts are jarring, and greatly disrupt the sense of narrative flow, especially since they're always the same. Maybe more damningly, despite the entire conceit being a perfect setup for us to walk into the middle of ongoing conversations, it doesn't happen very often. Instead, the characters feel like NPCs, waiting for this unseen and unfelt presence to arrive before beginning their interactions. Much of that is inherent in the structure of the spirit's presence: scenes can begin and end anywhere in the house, not just in the closet from which the spirit first emerged, and it never departs mid-conversation. In every instance, whatever interaction the family is engaged is wraps up before we silently cut to black, making everything too neat and tidy and deliberate.

That being said, the way the story builds is quite compelling, slowly meandering with a bunch of small and relatable dramatic ideas around the edges that gradually coalesce to induct us into this family and their problems. What suspense there is comes a little later, pushed to the fore upon the introduction of a medium who purports to shed some light on what's going on, but in that cryptic and not-entirely-helpful way mediums always do in film. Because as is the case with Soderbergh, no matter the genre sandbox in which he's playing, his concern first and foremost is character drama. Integral on that front is their mother Rebecca (Lucy Liu), dedicated first and foremost to her job (although she may have screwed that up...) and secondly to ensuring her star swimmer son has the best chance to land a sweet scholarship. And their father Chris (Chris Sullivan), an anxious ball of nerves who's mostly concerned about how withdrawn his daughter has become in the wake of her friend's death.

Adding to my enjoyment of the film is taking in just how excited Soderbergh remains about the possibilities of the moving picture. Over thirty-five years into his professional career, he remains willing to step outside his comfort zone, be it by making a movie on an iPhone (twice!), crafting an independent web series distributed entirely through a stand-alone website, or returning to a series he began to create a polarizing entry (which I'd argue surpasses the original). In addition, he practices his art form with remarkable regularity: whereas most modern filmmakers average two or more years between releases, very few years have passed since his 1989 debut that Soderbergh hasn't release at least one (save for a brief pause in the mid 2010s). That he refuses to settle into some easily identifiable style, instead choosing to challenge himself technically on so many of his films, is an admirable trait which will keep me coming back, no matter the premise.

To that end, I'll see you back here in March for Black Bag, his upcoming spy thriller with Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. When does the man sleep?!