PRESENCE: Elegy For a Ghost
By Harrison J. Bahe
A family becomes convinced they are not alone after moving into their new home in the suburbs.
Director Steven Soderbergh is an incredibly innovative filmmaker who uses new and advancing technology of the times to tell a story. Whether it be shooting on traditional film or to shooting on old, dingy MiniDV tapes or to shooting an entire film on an iPhone, Soderbergh has done it all to incredible merit. Now, with Presence, Soderbergh tackles the long profitable haunted house genre. It would be easy to label this as a horror movie but that would be an incorrect labeling. Which is unfortunate because this film is being promoted as a straight up horror film. Presence, however, is a family drama. 100%. In fact, there really is no horror at all. I could not recall a single jump scare. Unfortunately, this gross mislabeling may hurt the film in the long run.
Presence is told completely from the point of a view of an unseen entity. Every scene features flowing steady cam shots utilizing wide angle lenses. The entity observes a quiet empty house slowly becoming inhabited by its new owners: a wife and husband played by Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan and their two children played by Callina Liang and Eddy Maday. The entity observes the comings and goings of the family and witnesses the subtle downfall of a marriage which already seemed to be teetering on the edge. The couple struggle through marital issues stemming from their jobs. The daughter is dealing with the guilt of losing two of her closest friends to an overdose. The son, who is overly coddled by his mother, is dealing with fitting in at school and befriending the cool guy to gain social status. All of this unfolds like a Lifetime drama but through a unique perspective: that of the unseen entity. All of this builds up to a finale that I certainly didn’t see coming because along with being a family drama, a murder mystery plot unveils itself in the third act. I held my jaw open in disbelief and heartbreak in the final scene.
One of the things Presence handles well is the supernatural. Never wandering into the realm of unbelievability but remaining relatively realistic, Presence showcased some theories I personally believe on the subject. Especially when it comes to the confusion of why this entity is haunting this home. Another theory I’ve always speculated on is that spirits who have passed on exist entirely in a different reality from us. While we exist on a physical plane, a displaced spirit exists on a metaphysical plane and, as such, time and space may work differently in their new existence. Speaking and theorizing about the supernatural is such a mind-bending foray into the unexplained and this film somehow manages to make sense of illogical spiritual beliefs.
Presence is not a full-on horror film. It is a family drama that deviates into a disturbing murder mystery by its third act. The film is unique in its approach by telling the story of a troubled family from the point of a view of a displaced spirit. I fear this gross mislabeling may hurt the film in the end as young viewers seeking cheap horror thrills will be disappointed to find a sad story about a crumbling marriage, a family in spiritual trouble, an apparent teenage overdose, and a murder mystery. I, on the other hand, accepted the film for what it was and thoroughly enjoyed this emotional rollercoaster ride of a film, which is why I give Presence—
4 Juices out of 5
Presence is Rated R for violence, drug material, language, sexuality and teen drinking. It currently playing in theaters nationwide.