Presence Movie Review: A thriller which stays with you beyond the screen

We are entering an era where directors have to put more imagination into the making technique than ever before, whether they are helming films or TV series. With Adolescence, we saw what could have been a directly narrated thriller being made as a thought-provoking drama, shot in a single take. With Presence, Steven Soderbergh flips what could have been just a supernatural thriller into a film shot in long takes from a first person’s perspective. The film follows the story of the Payne family as they encounter supernatural disturbances after they move into a new house. The film, though short and intriguing with a lot of heart, challenges the audiences’ attention with its long takes and straight cuts. While this approach has its negatives, it ultimately pays off.

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddie Maday, West Mulholland, and Julia Fox

We rarely see a film with a first person’s perspective. Beyond the films in the found footage genre, there are no films which use the technique. For example, the long takes that make up Presence show the characters from an 'eye' rather than the camera. Hence, the actors don’t look perfect—they look human. Due to the whole film keeping us in suspense as to whose perspective we are viewing the sequence of events from, we are forced to keep speculating as each character shows their flaws when they are continuously pushed. This ingenuity from the director takes the shift away from the long takes and uses the technique as a doorway into that universe. Thus, we are not just experiencing the film as an audience—we are experiencing it as a character.

In the film, Soderbergh and writer David Koepp take the themes of power, rumours, and empathy and show us how a single event can make these themes seem different in the eyes of each viewer. Presence has a short runtime; hence, it poses a challenge for Koepp to give satisfying arcs for the characters. But Koepp hits the mark, as the main characters go through journeys of their own and with each other to give a well-rounded look into a suburban family. Callina Liang plays Chloe, whose journey to self-assurance makes the nucleus of the film. Her family, consisting of her soft-natured father Chris, played by Chris Sullivan; her mother Rebekah, played by Lucy Liu, whose relative lack of empathy affects a teenage Chloe; and Chloe’s quintessential jock brother Tyler, played by Eddie Maday, all have an effect on her and all go through journeys of change when the disturbances start. But it is when we meet Ryan, played by the talented West Mulholland, we see the tonal shift with the film. Ryan is introduced in an unassuming manner. He is just another teenager who starts to hang out with Tyler. But as he interacts with other characters, we see the layers come off and a different person with wayward intentions be revealed.

We go into the theatre expecting a thriller with setups, jump scares, a very scary image of a raging entity, and a feel-good ending that acts as a balm to the highs and lows a horror film can offer. We instead get a slow-burn, character-driven, trope-breaking, and philosophical film that ultimately keeps us seated and not wanting to get out of the theatre and move on from the experience. An interesting deviation of a familial trope in Presence is that we see the mother being high-powered, morally grey, and ambitious, and the father being empathetic, soft, and honest. Instead of trying to portray a mother as an emotional woman with splashes of strength and independence, the film offers a character with fifty shades of grey. This gives space for us to move out of the conventional notion that a woman cannot be morally grey with good intentions. Lucy Liu shines as the sublime and stern Rebekah.

Presence is scary because events from the film happen to real people. The film is a reminder of the dangers a teenage girl encounters. It is full of heart, as we see that even with the torrential family dynamics, everything can get better. It also serves as a complete theatrical experience, as it keeps you thinking even after you leave the theatre.