Presence (2024)
Presence: Don’t let bad advertising ruin a great movie | 4/5 Stars
Written by Noah Dietz: 1/27/2025
Since the dawn of time people have been misrepresenting things, and Steven Soderbergh’s newest release has fallen victim to that. Presence, if you’re going by the trailers, is one of the scariest things you’re going to see this year. It “flips the haunted house subgenre on its head” according to Dread Central’s review snippet the trailers were using. Unfortunately, while the Dread Central article has a full and thought out review, the cherry picked quotes and editing used in the trailers leave many feeling… misled.
I hadn’t heard much about this film, to be completely honest. A few critics I follow were talking positively, but I hadn’t seen any trailers myself and my personal circles didn’t even know it existed. Nonetheless, after hearing a small buzz yesterday about how the film had been mismarketed, I decided to throw my hat in the ring to see what it was all about.
What should be noted first and foremost is the technical achievement on display. Soderbergh takes us on a journey, piloting us through the film as the director and camera operator rolled into one. The camera swoops through the home from room to room, gliding through it all with so much grace and purpose you sometimes forget somebody is holding it. Not once do we spy an erroneous reflection, and the way the camera sits in the world you don’t even think of the fact that a body must be connected.
The film is shot from the POV of the titular presence, a ghost who seems to be haunting the house. We’re quickly introduced to our focal characters, a family who doesn’t seem to be doing too well at all. Deep tension radiates from every scene they’re together in, more than what’s expected from simply moving. We learn that this move is fully motivated by the mother’s (Lucy Liu) desire to get her son (Eddy Maday) into a better school for swimming. The rest of the family doesn’t seem to want this, but they go on with it because it’ll make mom happy. It’s not a great time for them, but especially not for the daughter Chloe (Callina Liang), who recently lost a friend to a suspected drug overdose.
The incredibly toxic family dynamics at play here can be hard to sit through at times. The way the parents speak to each other is enough to set you on edge, with cruel jabs and a lack of any level of empathy to Chloe’s situation. That’s not to say there’s not good moments between anyone, Chris Sullivan plays a father at the end of his rope who is running out of ways to hold his family together. He shoulders a heavy burden in this film as the emotional glue holding down the side plots of the film, and he does it wonderfully. You truly believe he cares about his kids, even when he doesn’t know how to show it.
The subjects of addiction, assault, and the way trauma affects those around you can make a heavy film, and this is no exception. While not a jump scare riddled, scream inducing film, that doesn’t mean it won’t sit with you longer than you might want. The blatant manipulation (to the viewer) by West Mulholland’s acting as Ryan will leave a sour taste in your mouth. His twisting and wheedling will bring back unfortunate memories of some of the worst people you know, even if he comes off as a little cartoonish at times. He’s a bad guy, but not a new genre of teenage nihilist. If you’ve seen Heathers or even Beetlejuice 2 you’ll know him a mile away.
The last thing I’ll say is that I loved how this film feels. This doesn’t feel like something a career film and TV director would make. Presence feels like a concept you’d hear about from a promising student film, not necessarily from an award winning director. That’s just what makes this so special. We have a man who knows what he wants the camera to do, and he also has the skills to make it happen. Though the story feels a little out of time (Dread Central referring to it feeling like a film out of 2014 and my partner saying 2010), Presence does work and will take you places you might not want to be. It’s not a non-stop thrill ride, it’s not a dread inducing slog, but it is something that will sit with you long after it’s finished and might even make you cry at the end.
At time of writing, Presence is available to be watched in theaters worldwide.