‘Presence’ movie review: Steven Soderbergh’s ingenious yet inconsistent horror-drama

A still from ‘Presence’

A spectre is haunting the Payne family — the spectre of Steven Soderbergh’s hand-held camera. At least, that is what we are led to believe as we are introduced to Chris (Chris Sullivan), Rebecca (Lucy Liu), and their teenaged children, Tyler (Eddy Maday), and Chloe (Callina Liang).

Rebecca’s dreams and desires for her son Tyler push the family to relocate to a new neighbourhood that promises access to a better school. In a quest to turn her son into a well-decorated swimmer, she plots, schemes, and possibly commits white-collar crimes. Chloe and Chris, meanwhile, play second fiddle, and though cautious of her actions, are overwhelmed by the uneasy relationships in their lives. Amidst grieving her friends who passed away under mysterious circumstances, Chloe finds herself particularly on edge in the new house.

Soderbergh’s ingenuity lies in unravelling the familial bonds through long, first-person point-of-view takes of a ghost or a phantom that lurks in the house. As he sustains these single shots through the film, the audience might feel compelled to involve themselves in the narrative. We are given space to interrogate our beliefs, ideas, and preconceived notions as he persists with his storyline. His cinematography feels designed to bring to the fore the dysfunction and tension simmering in the Payne family.

A still from ‘Presence’

One day, Tyler befriends Ryan Caldwell (West Mulholland), a student at his school who boasts significant social clout. As the duo hang out together in their house, Ryan is taken by Chloe’s presence, and he sneaks around to spend time with her, adding to the stressors the family is already battling. The tension never reaches a crescendo and often leaks out inadvertently with seemingly unexplainable and illogical instances of absurd supernatural accidents, which include the spirit organising Chloe’s bed and bookshelf. The camera that does not venture outside the house through most of the runtime, while making it claustrophobic, adds mild tension to the house, decorated with wooden interiors, begging to be set ablaze. With absent jump scares and subverted horror stereotypes (for the most part), the film attempts to manufacture chills that slowly creep up on you but mostly fails.

Lucy Liu is brilliant as a boy mom who evokes annoyance, and Chris Sullivan coasts through as a girl dad who is treading carefully around his obsessive wife, trying to address their daughter’s needs. Flatly written lines that sound nonchalant on the surface add brevity to their dynamic, so much so that in the absence of the chills, the film almost morphs into a sociological study of an interracial middle-class family chasing the myth of the American dream.

While Soderbergh is inconsistent in his attempt at manufacturing a tale of silent familial dysfunction and misery, Presence as a project still holds value. It is exciting to watch the 62-year-old Academy Award-winning director continuing to challenge the norms of conventional filmmaking, upholding his proclamation about how filmmakers are always at the beginning of infinity.

Presence is currently running in theatres.