Film Brain reviews Steven Soderbergh's experimental take on the haunted house film, presented as a POV from the ghost's perspective, but it isn't really a horror film.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Projector and on this episode Lucy Liu and her family discover their
00:04house has a presence in Steven Soderbergh's POV haunted house film.
00:26Rebecca and Chris played by Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan along with their teenage children
00:30Tyra and Chloe played by Eddie Madej and Kalina Liang move into a new house with Chloe still
00:36grieving from the recent death of a friend.
00:39But the house carries a spirit inside of it which seems to be particularly drawn towards
00:43Chloe.
00:44Presence is directed by prolific auteur Steven Soderbergh who has mixed more mainstream films
00:48like Ocean's Eleven, Erin Brockovich or Magic Mike with more experimental films like Full
00:54Frontal or The Girlfriend Experience.
00:56He's long had this kind of one for them, one for me approach and sometimes has even
01:01released two films within the same year like Steven Spielberg does like 2013's Side Effects
01:07and Behind the Candelabra, the 2019 Netflix duo of High Flying Bird and The Laundromat
01:12and this year with Presence and the spy thriller Black Bag which releases in a few weeks time.
01:17Although it is actually worth noting that Presence premiered at last year's Sundance
01:22Film Festival, it's taken about a year for it to actually be released to the public
01:26outside of the festival circuit.
01:29In addition, both this and Black Bag are actually written by equally prolific screenwriter David
01:34Koepp whose credits include Jurassic Park, Spider-Man and is actually re-teamed with
01:39Soderbergh after writing Kimmy.
01:42Apparently Soderbergh who is the son of a parapsychologist had the idea for Presence
01:46when he was told that someone had been killed in the house that he had bought and thought
01:49their spirit might still be haunting inside of it and he gave the idea to Koepp to expand
01:54out into a feature.
01:55And Soderbergh has always been one to experiment with both form but also how he films his movies.
02:01He's often his own cinematographer under a pseudonym.
02:04Full Frontal was shot on a DV camcorder and Unsane and High Flying Bird were actually
02:09filmed on iPhones.
02:11Presence was shot on a Sony A93 which really isn't that dissimilar to the Sony A6400 I'm
02:18filming this very review on but for you camera nerds, and I say that affectionately because
02:23I am one, it has a global shutter rather than a rolling shutter which means that you get
02:29none of that skewing jello effect when the camera moves around fast which is pretty important
02:35because it does that a lot in this movie.
02:38He took this camera and slapped it on a gimbal and wore slippers to dampen his footsteps
02:44as he went through the house which is pretty impressive as it's often for several long
02:49minutes in extended takes at a time, often going up and down stairs.
02:54So Presence is definitely more the experimental side of Soderbergh but not without some commercial
03:00elements.
03:01One thing that isn't really is a horror film, or at least I wouldn't really describe it
03:05as one, but Neon has been marketing this aggressively as some super scary horror film and I think
03:11that's going to backfire.
03:12That seems to be Neon's trick at the moment, they had a lot of success last year with long
03:17legs and really building the hype around that and they seem to be applying the same marketing
03:21to pretty much everything they're releasing since.
03:23And if you're coming into this movie expecting it to be a horror film with lots of scares
03:28in it, you're going to hate this and feel cheated, it's the wrong expectations.
03:34What it is is a literal ghost story, one that isn't terrifying in the traditional sense
03:40but it will haunt you if you're open to it.
03:43And that POV camera is the defining feature of Presence, it takes the traditional concept
03:48of the haunted house movie and flips it on it's head, whereas instead of aligning us
03:52with the human characters who are trying to catch glimpses of the supernatural, we the
03:57audience are the ghost.
03:59The opening section of the movie especially has a lot of quite short sequences or kind
04:03of snatches of moments that are separated by cuts to black, almost reminding you of
04:08the setup of a paranormal activity movie but inverted.
04:12And whereas the camera in those films is usually locked off in those, usually you're meant
04:17to see the movement within the static frame, here the camera glides and roams around freely,
04:24seeming to float around within the confines of the house and it becomes a character itself.
04:29The very first shot of the film is an extended take through the empty house, which just simply
04:35establishes the geography of the entire movie to come.
04:39The movie is shot with an ultra wide angle lens which gives it this slightly surreal
04:43and otherworldly feel to the visuals because everything is slightly distorted by it, especially
04:48when the camera gets right up close to the characters.
04:51It becomes almost hyper real because it has this wider field of view than normal human
04:56perspective and it gives this very expansive view of the many rooms in the house.
05:01You're probably feeling something akin to that effect right now because I'm using an
05:05ultra wide angle lens because I'm only an arm's distance away from the camera.
05:10But it also has this kind of distancing effect at the same time because that field of view
05:15makes the characters seem like they're further away, almost detaching you from events as
05:20they play out directly in front of you.
05:22But there's something exhilarating and almost vicariously thrilling about feeling freeform,
05:28especially when the ghost starts using their powers to move objects and influence events.
05:34And because the audience's eyes are the ghosts, we often feel like we've willed our own powers
05:40into making those things happen ourselves.
05:42It's a bit of a strange feeling.
05:44But inevitably there is almost something sinister about it because there's an inherent voyeurism
05:49about being this invisible force that can move at will and eavesdrop on private conversations
05:54or moments where characters think they're alone and watch their secrets.
05:59It's again a flip on the traditional narrative where we're usually watching events from a
06:03third person perspective and thus are regularly offered access to dramatic irony that the
06:08other characters don't see.
06:10We know something's happened but the characters don't.
06:13Presence's first person view actually calls attention to that and then makes it feel like
06:18it's invasive.
06:20If there are jolts in the film, it's actually the moments where the characters almost seem
06:24to sense the ghost is watching them and then look directly into the camera and their glances
06:30seem to extend beyond the screen and out at us, the audience.
06:35And we suddenly feel like we've been seen, almost like we've been caught intruding onto
06:39their lives.
06:40And it's in those moments that I almost want to instinctively recoil, even though it makes
06:44absolutely no sense.
06:46That's even though the characters might not even realise what they're looking at.
06:50And also, this is a film.
06:53It's likely why mirrors, especially an old one in the living room, are a prominent motif
06:57throughout the film, being a connection to the supernatural in-universe when characters
07:02touch it.
07:03When the characters look at the camera, they appear like they're transcending the screen
07:07that separates us from them.
07:10Somewhat surprisingly, the film that Presence most draws comparison to is Roberts and Mechazist
07:15Here, both of which are tour directors experimenting with filmmaking and storytelling to portray
07:20the drama and movement of everyday domestic lives.
07:24But whereas Here locks the camera rigidly to one spot for almost the entire film as
07:29centuries of time pass before it, using lots of CGI and advanced de-aging to accomplish
07:35that, instead the camera in Presence rarely stops moving and that is mostly the main special
07:40effect in otherwise a fairly lo-fi film.
07:44And I liked Here more than some, but it is admittedly a clunky technical behemoth of
07:49a movie.
07:50And Presence isn't perfect, and we'll get to that, but it is a more dynamic and lively
07:56one.
07:57I think that it's more successful at making what happens in people's homes feel like
08:01it's cinematic.
08:02It's also a bit of an interesting coincidence given the differences between their approaches
08:07that both of them end in exactly the same way, with the camera finally tracking outside
08:12to at last reveal the house that the entire film preceding it has taken place inside of.
08:18But one thing I don't think Soderbergh's film is trying to be is scary, and moreover,
08:23I don't even think it's attempting to be either.
08:25The unusual perspective means there's very little real tension for a lot of the film,
08:30and certainly not from the ghost itself, because it becomes fairly clear early on that whatever
08:37this entity is, it doesn't seem to want to hurt the family or harm it in any real way.
08:42It seems to focus on Chloe, and the way that it often inhabits her room is not really a
08:48threatening one, there's actually a moment where it feels like it's being invasive and
08:52turns away from the action.
08:55So if anything, there's always a kind of Spielbergian whimsy and wonder at the ghost, especially
09:01once the family start to realise that Chloe's intuitions about a presence are very real.
09:07That's perhaps not surprising given Kep has actually written several films for Spielberg.
09:11Instead, the ghost mostly functions as a metaphor for grief, which is a major theme in the film.
09:18Chloe has recently lost her friend Nadia to an overdose, and she also knew another girl at her
09:23school that also died the same way very recently, and so she's quiet and despondent, understandably so.
09:30Her empathetic father Chris, played by Chris Sullivan, is a good example of positive, supportive
09:35masculinity as a character, wants to try and help her work through her pain.
09:39Certainly she's closer to him than she is to her mother, who is a workaholic named Rebecca,
09:45played by Lucy Liu, and she's far less concerned with the situation.
09:50She just argues she simply needs time to heal.
09:53Chris rather accurately perceives the situation when he tells her,
09:57have you ever noticed that your arguments always involve us not doing anything?
10:01That division certainly isn't helping with their marriage, and Chris is quietly struggling,
10:06to the extent that in private he's actually contemplating perhaps separating from Rebecca.
10:12And it certainly doesn't help that Rebecca very openly favours her older son Tyler,
10:17a budding swimming star, who is the reason they've moved house so they can get into a better school.
10:23And Tyler is a bit of a jock who is even less supportive or sympathetic to Chloe than their mother is,
10:29and is very cynical about the idea of anything supernatural going on around the house,
10:33or at least until the point where it can't be denied anymore.
10:37And so, in this environment, the ghost becomes this manifestation of grief, unspoken, uninvisible,
10:44but omnipresent in every moment and interaction all the same, even if they refuse to talk about it.
10:50The only person that seems to approve Chloe's mood is one of Tyler's friends, Ryan,
10:54played by Wes Mulholland, who says all the right things like,
10:58you're in control, but is pretty evidently a hormonally charged creep that wants one thing in particular.
11:05In fact, he's the kind of character that makes you hope that the ghost is maybe that of John Candy and Uncle Buck,
11:11so they can fire a couple of golf balls at the little turd.
11:15Presence asks for a lot of patience from the audience, and even just 84 minutes,
11:19it does feel a bit slow and slight, and it takes its time to get going.
11:24I did think that the family dynamic could have been fleshed out just that little bit more to add some substance to the story.
11:30In fact, a lot of screen time is spent on Chris,
11:33who gets this odd subplot where he calls up his lawyer friend and then asks him for advice
11:39about if one person in a marriage has been involved in something illegal.
11:43What do you do in that situation? What exactly is this all about?
11:47Never explained or resolved.
11:49It just ends up being one of those things where you think about after the film and you go,
11:53what exactly was that even about?
11:56And that lack of overt horror elements means there's this weird absence to Presence,
12:00Even when it's trying to do tropes of the genre, like when a psychic turns up at the house
12:04and does her best Zelda Rubenstein impression, sensing the supernatural aura,
12:09it all feels a bit half-hearted in its execution.
12:13But the underdevelopment of the film's story is most evident in its climax,
12:18which to me felt like it escalated all of a sudden, and then is over in a way which is very quick and jarring.
12:24It's just clumsily staged.
12:26I think it needed just a couple of extra beats so that it played out a little bit more naturally,
12:31because it's meant to be tragic and shocking, clearly.
12:35But in my screening, and in several others I've been told,
12:38the audience burst out into unintentional laughter.
12:41I mean, just uproarious laughter, which is clearly a sign that something has gone very badly wrong.
12:48And it's a shame, honestly, because that totally overshadowed the film's final scene,
12:52which completely recontextualises everything that came before it.
12:58Alas, that botched ending left a very sour taste in much of the audience's mouth.
13:03As a technical experiment, presence works, and the use of the camera and point of view is clever and it's thought-provoking.
13:10But as a story, somewhat less so.
13:13The gimmick can only distract so much from the fact that the characters are underdeveloped and quite thin.
13:19They're not all that engaging.
13:22I'd actually be interested to see how this exact same concept would play out with someone who is far more horror-minded than Soderbergh is,
13:29and whether or not they'd actually be able to use it to build more suspense or tension out of it.
13:34It is definitely a film that is likely to divide viewers, and not just because of its marketing.
13:40What I suspect, though, is that it's going to become the kind of film that is a staple of film studies courses,
13:46but is far less enamoured by mainstream viewers.
13:50That being said, though, I do wonder if the film would actually play out better with the knowledge of that final moment in the ending,
13:58because that makes so many things about the film clearer,
14:01but I'm also not sure how many viewers would actually give it that second chance.
14:07But despite its faults, I can't deny that it did actually linger in my mind for quite a bit after I saw it, like its own ghost.
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14:36Until next time, I'm Matthew Buck, fading out.