Presence isn’t a ghost story – it’s a ghost’s story.
At least, that’s how Presence, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp, posits itself – told through the first-person POV of a spirit haunting the house of the Payne family as they navigate painful traumas of their own. In the oft-oversaturated world of haunted house horror, it’s a really interesting premise and one that, after a stack of excellent critical reviews, it seemed Soderbergh and Koepp had pulled off.
You already know that Steven Soderbergh can direct the hell out of a movie – in fact, I think he’s a great choice for a challenging narrative device like this one, and, in Presence’s first act, he really makes use of this first-person perspective to great and effective use. The silent observer that the audience inhabits is instantly compelling, and, at first, there’s the really juicy promise of a unique haunted house tale at the hands of this experienced director. The vignettes and glimpses of this family’s life that we see piece together a unit in crisis, especially Chloe (Callina Liang), who is struggling after the loss of her best friend to an apparent drug overdose, and the dynamic first-person perspective feels, at times, almost intrusively intimate.
And that is, at first, what I though this film was going to be about; a story of grief and loss and the way it haunts us, as told from the point of view of a spirit longing to be remembered. But it’s not – no, this story is, instead, about a teenage serial killer drugging, assaulting, and murdering teenage girls, and the shitty brother who (sort-of) stops him. The plot is so blunt and clumsy for a set-up that’s so rich and unique – there’s no scrap of subtlety, even wheeling in a psychic at the halfway point to yell plot points up through the window to make sure the audience doesn’t accidentally develop their own interpretation of the story at any point.
The plot, though, isn’t where this film totally loses me. No, that’s the writing. David Koepp’s approach to most of these characters is so broad that it swings between comically unrealistic (oh, your son was involved in the sexually-motivated bullying of a teenage girl? What mother wouldn’t find that funny?) and frustrating wasteful, especially when it comes to the excellent Lucy Liu. Specifically, the writing for the teenage characters, which is so self-consciously and appallingly out-of-touch as to come around into parody in the process – I’m not saying David Koepp had to go undercover at a high school for six months for the sake of accuracy, but God, this Very Serious Film about rape and abuse and murder could do without the feeling that the characters involved are about three seconds out from Skibidi Toilet-ing all over the place at any given moment. It’s borderline unwatchable in the third act, and, truly, I don’t know how a script this evidently poor made it anywhere near a finished movie.
Presence is a deeply frustrating movie – it’s not just a waste of a good premise, but has tantalizing flashes of just how good that premise could have been if the plot and characters had been developed in a thoughtful, interesting way. That said, I know it’s been a standout of recent horror releases for some, and if you’re among them, I would love to hear what you liked about it – let me know in the comments below!
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Hollywood Reporter)
No But Listen 