“Presence” (2025) is Steven Soderbergh’s stab at telling a ghost story as the Payne family moves into a house and gradually discovers that their new home came with a titular spectral figure. As the camera glides through the house, it is supposed to represent the ghost’s point of view. Only Chloe senses this otherworldly figure, but she is easily dismissed until things begin to move in the house. For people who do not normally watch scary movies, it may be genuinely terrifying. For the rest of us, it is a deeply conventional story told in an unconventional way, and the gimmick is not enough to make up for the story’s shortfalls.
January is usually the time of year when dreadful movies get released, and “Presence” is one of them, but it did not have to be. The Payne family is divided. Boy mom and businesswoman, Rebecca (Lucy Liu), clearly favors budding swim star Tyler (Eddy Maday) while Chris tends to the grieving Chloe (Callina Liang) whose friends died. The film has a found footage feel as the ghost gets to be a fly on the wall and witness the family being themselves behind closed doors without them being the wiser. While the audience may be thrilled with the vantage point, the ghost is not and favors a closet in a specific room before the Paynes buy the house. Chloe ends up using the spirit’s favorite room as her bedroom, and the ghost seems to care for her.
“Presence” tries to get moviegoers invested in the identity of the ghost, which is key to the story. It follows the usual rules including it is invisible, can move objects and is bound to the house. When the objects move, it is laughable and awkward. The “Paranormal Activity” franchise has better special effects than the goofiness here. It would have been better to skip the more theatrical aspects of haunting than Soderbergh’s embarrassing attempt at sticking to the genre. Scam artists from the past conducting seances have less dated material. There are some new rules introduced when their realtor, Cece (Julia Fox), introduces them to Lisa (Natalie Woolams-Torres), a woman who is open to the spirit world. Hint: eternity is the new time travel. Even though the house feels like its own character, it is not the source of the phenomenon. Lisa tries to communicate with the entity, but one big problem: the ghost is a benevolent mystery to itself.
I will not spoil who the real villain is, but if you cannot guess from the clunky dialogue, you need to watch more movies or none. If “Presence” wanted to be daring, this film did not need a villain and should have settled for being a modest family drama with a dash of the supernatural to knock them out of their quotidian complacency and routine so they could get in touch with their humanity and face their mortality and the ephemeral nature of life with loved ones. Nope, Americans cannot handle facing their death and grief without turning to something flashier and more comfortable. In an ocean of disappointing moments, the deepest one is the choice to make all the pieces fit neatly. It is really a moralistic murder mystery to teach a very important lesson to each of the members of the family, and to ensure that nefarious people get what they deserve. Fingers are wagging! Writer David Koepp makes M. Night Shyamalan seem like a freewheeling, pre-Hays Code filmmaker. It is “Touched by an Angel” meets “Scream” except tedious.
The villain monologues, and honestly any of the murderer’s victims would be begging for death just to stop hearing that inane droning, but that character is only the most egregious example of the leaden writing style. It also does not help that the main story revolves around the teens who are as deep as a kiddie pool. The one mystery that could not be solved is whether the younger actors were bad or if the direction and dialogue are culpable. They are rendered so stiff and wooden that your ears may bleed from the pain of listening to them.
If there was any justice in the world, Chris and Rebecca’s story would take center stage. Sullivan is most famous for playing Toby in “This Is Us,” and he brings genuine warmth to the story. His work brings out the best in everyone, especially Liang, which suggests that she is as good as her scene partner. Sullivan is doing all the work with Maday, who is barely two dimensional. He is an arrogant, insensitive, cruel jock who is disinterested in anything going on, but the father believes there is a nicer person inside. Well, it is a biological necessity that he must believe in his son.
Liu is the best part of “Presence,” and while her character’s shadiness is never fully divulged, it was the most intriguing aspect of the story. Her character is ruthless and driven but judging by all the alcohol that Rebecca is imbibing, she has a conscience. It is an underwritten role that Liu fleshes out. It is implied that the house was one of the fruits of Rebecca’s unethical practices, a symbol of her single-minded devotion to Tyler. She and Tyler see Chloe as deadweight whom they marginalize so they can float to the top. People who are uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, especially in a family, are insidious and pose the real danger since they are unreliable for Chloe or Chris to lean on but have unfettered access to further wound them. There is a more subtle story here that could have spoken to an audience who may think that positive thinking is uplifting instead of toxic. Even at her worst, Rebecca still acknowledges the unknown though her cynicism ultimately wins out.
The resolution is as unambiguous, dumb, under-earned and heavy-handed as the dialogue. The only surprising element is a special container filled with Saran Wrap. At least the short run time means that you have wasted less of your life watching this failed experiment. For those who are running to the theater to salivate over Fox, do not bother. Most scenes are shot with a fisheye lens, and she appears for less than five minutes. This cameo is not worth the price of admission.
If “Presence” has one thing going for it, it retroactively makes “Personal Shopper” (2017) a better artsy fartsy ghost story. Also it feels as if it is in conversation with “Nosferatu” (2024) as Chloe calls out into the night for some spiritual companionship except without the disastrous personal consequences. While it is audacious to film from the ghost’s point of view like “In a Violent Nature” (2024), it is pointless if the themes do not similarly rise to the occasion. It is like serving a sumptuous feast of eaten over, rotting scraps from dumpster diving. It is such a deeply serious unserious movie that only veering in the opposite direction could save it such as some tasteless camp with the mom hitting Mommie Dearest levels of venality.
