Cinematic Releases: Presence (2024) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of NEON

Steven Soderbergh, despite initial talks of retirement from film directing completely, has returned at a breakneck pace cranking out a new film each year sometimes releasing within months of one another’s theatrical runs.  When 2013 seemed to signal the end of his filmography with Side Effects, four years elapsed until his return with Logan Lucky followed by his experimental iPhone indie Unsane with a renewed energy and minimalism to his productions.  Scaling back the budgets considerably as well, it is something of a full circle comeback to his indie roots beginning with Sex, Lies and Videotape.  His most recent venture Presence picked up by NEON marks the director’s first foray into the supernatural horror subgenre and as such is a bit of a redux of screenwriter David Koepp’s Stir of Echoes as far as an unfinished business ghost-story but Soderbergh’s brilliant technical approach and the performances give it a remarkable emotional weight not felt in this arena since Peter Medak’s The Changeling.

 
Utilizing the Poltergeist font in the opening titles, Presence begins silently in an empty home seemingly from the perspective of an entity or spirit roaming about the floors and staircases endlessly when a family named The Paynes consisting of married couple Rebekah (Lucy Liu), Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their two children Tyler (Eddy Maday) and his younger sister Chloe (Callina Liang) is shown the household by a realtor.  While Chloe is grieving the death of her friend Nadia who was one of two girls who died in their sleep in the community, she begins sensing the presence and begins believing it might be the spirit of Nadia.  Meanwhile Tyler introduces Chloe to his druggie friend Ryan (West Mulholland) who begins making moves on her including but not limited to spiking her drinks, prompting a torrent of paranormal activities that will bring all the principal characters together in ways unexpected and moving. 

 
Again a bit of a companion piece to Stir of Echoes only with Steven Soderbergh editing and shooting the piece himself at an astounding speed, reportedly only allowing two takes per shot in a total of only eleven days, Presence is a lean mean little spin on the paranormal horror subgenre featuring strong performances from its young cast and particularly the parents played by Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan.  Lucy Liu gives one of her most emotional performances to date here conveying emotions of grief while Chris Sullivan makes the father figure a complex man who is growing apart from his wife and her fraudulent work activities.  Still the ones who own this movie are the three teen actors Callina Liang, Eddy Maday and West Mulholland who bring this saga with the omniscient first-person point-of-view camera perspective of the Presence into a thrilling roller coaster ride with moments of genuine terror and suspense.

 
Released theatrically in January of 2025 against Flight Risk and Brave the Dark, the taut little Soderbergh spin on Stir of Echoes by way of Poltergeist with the same wide-angled aesthete as Unsane, Presence did well critically and commercially against a tight budget and release.  Made for $2 million, it went on to rake in around $9.3 million and helped renew interest in Lucy Liu’s career.  Steven Soderbergh is hitting his stride again with another film Black Bag while Presence finishes up in theaters and enjoys streaming rentals while screenwriter David Koepp is also having something of a career renaissance.  A little bit of a game changer in the pantheon of unfinished business ghost-stories where the camera itself is the main star, Presence like the title will sneak up on you where you least expect it and for Soderbergh has fashioned maybe his most emotional film experience since Erin Brockovich or Traffic.  Soderbergh still has it and this one packed quite a spectral punch.

--Andrew Kotwicki