Given the current state of the film industry, where franchises and sequels seem to dominate the screens, securing funding and production for original films has become more challenging than ever.
Thankfully, few directors working today through their acclaimed filmographies have gained enough trust from studio executives to create films that experiment and push the boundaries of filmmaking without the need for big-budget financial expectations hindering their vision.
Director Steven Soderbergh is just one example out of many who have acquired this reputation. His latest film, “Presence,” released on Jan. 19, takes advantage of this acclaim to craft an atypical rendition of the all too familiar expectations of ghost stories and haunted house films. Soderbergh also chooses to mix in heavy familial drama topics such as death, divorce and drugs around his film’s horror advertised plot.
“Presence” follows the Payne family as they move into their new generic suburban home, but soon realize that their new residence is anything but ordinary. Their daughter Chloe (Calliana Lang) becomes increasingly convinced that a mysterious entity haunts the house after a string of strange occurrences. Reluctant to believe Chloe due to her recent trauma, the rest of the Payne family struggles to make sense of their supernatural encounters while also attempting to deal with the mental baggage that the family carries together.
Through the first act of the film and its official trailer, observant viewers, will quickly realize that “Presence” is entirely shot from the point of view of the entity, or the “presence,” that roams throughout the house. Due to this decision, scenes play out longer than traditional films and dialogue is delivered in a way that closely resembles staged theater.
Choosing this bold form of storytelling poses challenges as to how scenes seamlessly transition between each other, immediately opening the door for general audiences to be turned-off or struggle to become immersed within the film’s narrative.
To navigate this challenge, Soderbergh edits his scenes akin to a series of vignettes with cuts of black for a few seconds before transitioning to another scene. For some viewers, this may only take the first 20 minutes of “Presence” to become well-adjusted, but it is not hard to understand how the adjustment period may never find its footing for mainstream moviegoers.
The film uses the camera as a character who makes decisions and creates consequences that move the plot along. With the viewer being placed as the entity haunting the family, “Presence” slowly gives crumbs of information to misdirect and foreshadow its identity. However, the entity’s characteristics can be more accurately described as observing rather than haunting the family, and its intentions are just as vague as the audience’s understanding of what the presence knows about itself.
Soderbergh crafts the mystery to intentionally lead audiences in one direction only to pull the rug out from under them in a way that does not feel forced but naturally earned by the film’s runtime and almost gut-punching reveal at the end.
This misdirection in the film, along with the questions raised without distinct answers, sings to Soderbergh’s understanding behind the concept that less can often be more, so that viewers can connect the dots of information on their own and feel rewarded for doing so.
Revealing less can leave room to theorize multiple aspects of a film without an obvious guiding light, and it also encourages repeated viewings that allow audiences to pick up new pieces of information that may alter their interpretations of the film’s mysteries after their first watch.
Soderbergh showcases his willingness to potentially alienate general audiences so that his creative decisions are not compromised. Although “Presence” does offer an unorthodox film experience, and deserves recognition for doing so in the current film climate, it does not alienate itself from a few shortcomings like the lackluster script from David Koepp that elicits vast moments of awkward and disconnected dialogue.
“Presence” may also fall victim to misleading advertisement as a horror movie since the film has more to say within the lens of a family drama about uncomfortable dynamics than from the perspective of a scary-tension filled ghost story. There are short moments of genuine terror within the film, but, unfortunately, the creators decide to convey these emotions by displaying characters being excruciatingly taken advantage of without any semblance of a trigger warning beforehand for audience members who might be similar real-life victims.
Verdict: Although “Presence” presents the viewer with an unconventional film experience they most likely have never seen before, it is this same experience that could create tension on whether or not general audiences enjoy the movie. In the same breath, however, Soderbergh’s unique vision may provide hardened film consumers with just enough to ponder over after their first watch.
