It Always Feels Like Somebody’s Watching Me: Presence Is Pure Terror

It Always Feels Like Somebody’s Watching Me: Presence Is Pure Terror

- By Creative Team

Soderbergh is a director who’s always taking big swings and trying new things, and Presence is no exception

Words By Dustin Meadows



Presence
, the latest from innovative director Steven Soderbergh, is an interesting experiment that is mostly a successful one. Not unlike 2024’s In A Violent Nature (directed by Chris Nash), in which a slasher film plays out largely from the perspective of the killer, Presence is a ghost story viewed entirely from the point of view of the titular “Presence.” Unlike In A Violent Nature, Presence actually sticks to the rules of its format and central conceit from start to finish, without a jarring third act shift that completely jettisons those rules out the window.

 

The story unfolds in a series of scenes where the Presence watches the lives of the Payne family play out, weaving a tale of trauma and marital and familial strife. Largely focusing on youngest daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) who is still mourning the very recent death of her best friend, older brother and star athlete Tyler (Eddy Maday), and parents Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan). Each scene plays out as long takes, giving insight into the family’s relationship with one another, and separated by hard cuts and time jumps from the Presence’s perspective. Imagine Paranormal Activity if it was more driven by the characters and their motivations than by jump scares. The decision to simply jump between time in the film helps to maintain the pacing and is even justified within the story at one point when a character explains how and why this Presence may have come to be.

While Presence is not without its chilling moments, it is definitely a slow burn, but one that builds naturally, fleshing out its central cast so that we begin to care about them as they discover and navigate the discovery of the Presence in their home. A lean runtime of 85 minutes also keeps the movie from overstaying its welcome, and while it does take its time building up to the reveal of the Presence to the Payne family, it never feels like its belaboring or dragging out the story just to pad the runtime. The film is carried largely on the strength of its incredibly fluid cinematography and solid performances from its central cast, in particular relative newcomer Liang. Chloe is a teenage girl struggling with trauma and the loss of a friend, an unsympathetic mother who clearly favors an unequally sympathetic brother over her daughter, and all of the other trappings that come with being a teenage girl.


Soderbergh is a director who’s always taking big swings and trying new things, and Presence is no exception. He manages to craft an intriguing ghost story that falls apart a little bit at the end, but it’s still absolutely worth catching on the big screen.

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