Presence (15)

A ghost is silently in situ when real estate agent Cece shows Rebekah Payne, husband Chris and their children Tyler and Chloe around the property, which has just come on the market. Rebekah is viewing the vacant home because it's in the correct district for her golden boy to attend the best school in the area, and she casually ignores the rest of the family to prioritise her son and potentially self-destruct her strained marriage. Chris bites his tongue until he can bear it no longer.

LondonNet Film Review

Presence (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Many ghosts linger in Steven Soderbergh’s confidently executed haunted house thriller, scripted by David Koepp, who adapted Jurassic Park for the screen more than 30 years ago. Not just the titular phantom, which roams silently around a three-bedroom suburban home and bears witness to a dysfunctional family coming apart at the seams, but also the ghosts of the people that these four residents once were or hoped to be…

Not the fragile, broken, despairing souls living side by side in enmity or silence, who justify ethically questionable actions by whispering, “It’s okay to go too far for the people you love.” But contented people, driven by burning passions and fuelled by hope, who instinctively make time for each other and love fiercely and unconditionally.

Shot from the perspective of the unnamed spirit, Presence is an exercise in virtuoso direction built around a solid premise and sinewy storytelling. Four central characters – domineering mother, peacemaker father, favourite son, grieving daughter – are sketched in broad strokes and placed firmly into two camps based on their moral compasses: emotionally sensitive saints or self-interested, sharp-tongued sinners. Koepp’s script attempts to smudge battle lines in a frenetic final act that feels rushed after the satisfying slow burn of an eerie opening hour by introducing a spiritualist (Natalie Woolams-Torres) who stares directly into the camera to indicate that she senses the manifestation.

The ghost is silently in situ when real estate agent Cece (Julia Fox) shows Rebekah Payne (Lucy Liu), husband Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their children Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang) around the property, which has just come on the market. Rebekah is viewing the vacant home because it’s in the correct district for her golden boy to attend the best school in the area, and she casually ignores the rest of the family to prioritise her son and potentially self-destruct her strained marriage. Chris bites his tongue until he can bear it no longer while Chloe tearfully deals with the recent death of her best friend from a drug overdose. As the Paynes unravel, Tyler invites new school friend Ryan (West Mulholland) into the home…

Presence breathes fresh air into a hoary genre with its stylistic first-person perspective, making occasional forays into the realms of the Paranormal Activity films as the spirit makes itself known. Capturing each scene as a single, unbroken handheld shot is neat but does necessitate some inelegant choreography such as characters standing in doorways for longer than seems natural so the camera has time to reach them before they move. Liu’s acid-tongued matriarch sends more of a chill down the spine than anything phantasmagorical. The greatest dangers inside any home are made of flesh and blood.

– Kim Hu