Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by David Koepp
Steven Soderbergh is a legendary Hollywood director who has delivered us plenty of incredible films throughout the years (Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven). In recent years, he has taken to being a lot more experimental is his approach to filmmaking, which has netted varying results, but one thing is always constant with his filmmaking approach: he makes it interesting. You can debate whether his more experimental films work, but his creativity and fearless vision always make for a good movie-going experience. He’s also a workaholic, releasing one or two movies every year it feels like. In fact, Presence is just the first of two movies he has on the calendar for 2025. The second, Black Bag, should prove to be more commercial, but I like to embrace all of his work.
Presence is a unique film, told from the point of view of a “being”, a “presence” which lives in this beautiful old house. When a new family moves it, the presence seems to connect with the daughter, Chloe (Callina Liang), who is a struggling high school teen who recently lost her best friend to a drug overdose. The parents (Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan) disagree on what their daughter needs to help recover from this trauma, while Chloe’s brother Tyler (Eddy Maday) hopes to acclimate to the new school as a popular swimmer. As moments arise is their lives, the presence begins to make itself known at appropriate times, but not everyone seems to believe in it.
The plot summary for this movie makes it sound a lot more like a horror movie with an intrusive ghost, and it has been marketed a lot as a type of horror movie, but really I didn’t find it scary at all, and in fact, I would tend to categorize this more as a psychological exploration of the human condition. This family, and in particular Chloe, has gone through a lot. What Soderbergh and writer David Koepp are doing with this “presence” is really exploring some deep themes of psychology and human response to trauma. There are likely many ways you can read this movie, and I hope there is great discourse exploring those ways, but to me I found the “presence” to be representative of our subconscious.
I’ll avoid any real spoilers, of which there are not many. This is really more a experiential movie than one with a firm story or narrative. But it feels like every time the presence inserts itself is in a moment of need, when a character needs to be held accountable, or reminded of who they really are, to not forget themselves. It’s a jarring experience at first, but I must admit fully engrossing. The film is made up of a series of moments, scenes spliced together seemingly at random, which makes one feel lost and disconnected at first. However, each subsequent scene or moment adds to what has come before it, and as things start to come together and fall into place, the film really hits its stride and I felt fully bought in not only to the structure, but the narrative.
This is not a traditional horror film, and any casual horror fans lining up to see this based on marketing may be disappointed. Or maybe they’ll be opened to the cinematic wonder that is Steven Soderbergh. I hope the latter because once again in his very untraditional way, Soderbergh has crafted a film which has stuck with me and made me consider its moments and its themes at great length. It is a film the more I think about the greater I appreciate what it’s trying to do. And to be honest, it earns an extra half star just for the house, this house it beautiful! I would love to live in it, just as living in the worlds created by Soderbergh always make for an interesting and oftentimes very rewarding experience.
Corndog Chats 