Director Steven Soderbergh has done it all. From Sex, Lies and Videotape to Erin Brockovich and Traffic (which it still baffles me were released in the same calendar year), to mainstream success with the Ocean’s Eleven and Magic Mike franchises, Soderbergh is always doing something interesting and unexpected. His latest film Presence came out of last year’s Sundance Film Festival where it enjoyed some moderate acclaim. But it looked like the kind of thing that might or might not have worked for me, so I made a point not to learn much about it. I knew it was a ghost story with lots of really over-exaggeratory review pull quotes in the trailer. That trailer might be Presence’s biggest problem.

A family moves into a house in the suburbs after having experienced a loss. Each member of this family begins to realize that they’re not exactly alone. 

Presence’s central gimmick is that you are seeing events unfold through the perspective of the entity or the ghost that is haunting this house. And the question or the mystery becomes, what is this presence? What does it want? Is it malevolent or friendly? Does it want to help this family or doom them? But you’re also wondering what everyone in this family has dealt with leading up to the film’s events. Because they’ve clearly experienced a great trauma and they’re dealing or not dealing with it in different ways. Is the titular presence tied to them or is it more passive? There’s a lot we don’t know at the outset and there’s a bunch of interesting stuff going on here from pretty much the minute we get going. 

Steven Soderbergh is just such an exciting filmmaker, he manages to nail just about everything he tries, and he’s always trying new things. And this year, we have at least one more Soderbergh film to look forward to, with Black Bag, starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, to be released only two months from now. Sometimes he has more success than others, but I deeply appreciate his willingness to attempt to expand the limits of what film can do. Presence feels so wholly original because of the ways in which this story is told, and because of the character detail and especially because of the ending, which will leave you with a lot to think about after the credits roll. Soderbergh, as he often does, serves as his own cinematographer and editor, and this film is full of really long, fluid camera takes and it’s fascinating how Soderbergh is using this camera, as a character for one, but also as a way of telling you things about these characters that maybe they don’t know about each other and the revelations that unfold.

This cast is also pretty terrific. Lucy Liu, as the mother, is a workaholic always with her head buried in her laptop. Chris Sullivan, as the dad, is a bit more introspective and tuned into what’s going on with the daughter. And she’s played by Callina Liang, and she’s absolutely terrific here. The son, played by Eddy Maday, is kind of the jock golden boy, and clearly the mother’s favorite. The dynamics that unfold in front of us from this unique perspective really tell you a lot about these people in fascinating ways. And if you don’t care about the people in this story, then nothing in this story matters. And Soderbergh and famed screenwriter David Koepp keep finding innovative ways of keeping the viewer involved with their lives.

Ultimately, Presence serves as little more than a creative flex for Steven Soderbergh, but what a flex! The filmmaker’s signature creativity and the bold originality on display here is probably the strongest thing it has going for it. But then when you aren’t expecting it, Presence sneaks up on you emotionally and leaves an impact you may not have been expecting. I feel like the advertising for this film, which touts it as some variant of ‘one of the scariest films you’ll see all year’, will set some audiences up for unrealistic expectations. Presence is moody, it’s eerie and haunting but it’s not scary in the traditional sense. There are no jump scares here. But there is so much more going on here intellectually, and that’s what makes Presence worth seeing.