I just saw Presence, and here are my thoughts…
A family going through emotional turmoil, moving to a new house, unaware that a ghost lives there and is watching them…
So there is a gimmick to this movie, and it’s that the entire film is shot like a POV from the ghost point of view, which I’ve never seen before. Now this does lead to a lot of long and art shots that some people might find a tad boring… This movie has been marketed as a conjuring or paranormal activity type movie, and so you’ll have some people thinking they’re about to get scared when in actuality, the film is much more of a family drama than a straightforward ghost story… Now they do work the ghost element in well, and it does have this like creepy. Depressing, unnerving feeling, but I would just advise people not to go in thinking you’re about to watch the next insidious movie.
Now the fact that a lot of this movie is a family drama, I got to say… This family has some good drama going on. I’m not going to give away any details, but let’s just say the daughter is going through some stuff, the mom is pushing her son, the siblings aren’t getting together, and the dad is just trying to hold everything together while also dealing with something his wife is up to… Like you’re looking at this family thinking like it can’t get any worse, but then the ghost shows up and you’re like, Oh man, leave these people alone; they’ve got enough going on already.”.
This actor, Chris Sullivan, plays the dad, who apparently was on This Is Us (I never saw it, but my mom loves it, so I’m sure he’s good in that) and was everyone’s favorite MCU character… Taserface in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (I didn’t recognize them; I saw that when I googled him afterwards), so he’s been around, but I got to ask… Where the heck has this guy been? This actor is so good in the role, I’m surprised I haven’t seen him in other things. He comes off as an “established character actor” like Michael Chiklis or Paul Giamatti, but this is the first thing I’ve ever seen him in, and I’m like… This guy is about to blow up and become the next David Harbour.
Lucy Liu is very good in the movie and takes what could be a normally two-dimensional and not very likable character and actually adds a lot of depth and humor to the role.
Callina Liang plays the daughter, and she’s very good at playing this character who is very introverted and going through a lot of heavy emotions, and it feels too much, and she doesn’t know how she’s gonna get through it… But then she’s able to pull herself together and have agency and really stand up for herself and point out what’s going on… It’s a very complex role, but she’s able to pull it all off, which is very commendable.
The brother character was interesting (played by Eddy Maday). The movie starts with you thinking about a certain way, and there are just so many twists and turns that happen with his character that you don’t know how it’s all gonna turn out with him. I go with his character was really well done.
So the movie starts out as what appears to be another “The Conjuring” style horror movie with jump scares and an implied spooky ghost trying to get you, but I would more describe this as like an episode of The Twilight Zone where there is a supernatural element, but it’s to cause conflict for the main characters… Like throughout the film, there’s this uncomfortable and spooky feel, but in a more traditional ghost story or thriller type way, like John Carpenter’s The Fog, Wuthering Heights, or Rebecca, where there is a physical manifestation or spirit that can also represent the loneliness or isolation of the characters or their internal sadness.
Holy cow, does this thing have one twist, like it’s appropriate for the Twilight Zone, because it has a "Seeing The Sixth Sense" for the first time level of a twist ending that almost recontextualizes the whole movie and what kind of movie you’re seeing… Like it’s gonna be a real shame this movie does not do better than I hope it does because, man, is this thing, like, just one of the most interesting everything-together twist endings I’ve seen in a very, very, very long time, maybe ever.
Boy, that David Koepp is one heck of a writer. He knows how to write very nuanced and interesting characters, he knows how to craft a story for maximum enjoyment and twist in a timely fashion, strikes the perfect balance of having witty dialogue but also feeling natural, and it must be said that for a guy who is 60, he can write teenagers very well… Which is impressive in its own right, lol.
Steve Soderbergh does great directing; he knows how to get very strong and meaningful performances out of his actors and really get you into the story and the stakes.
I will say, if you have seen a lot of these kinds of ghost movies, you’ll definitely see some returning tropes… People being scared of things moving on their own, no one believing that something scary is going on, eventually a down-to-earth and heavenly sweet medium comes in to give a very emotional and foreboding speech about the ghost and things to come… So if you watch a lot of these types of movies, you might think, Oh, here we go again, and feel like they’re repeating standard clichés of the genre, but I would say stick with it because it all leads somewhere special.
There was this one subplot going on that really didn’t play into the final as much as I hoped. I wish they had a stronger connection or a more relevant plot-type ending for the subplot because it set up like it’s gonna be a big deal, but then just kind of fades away.
I didn’t know where else to put this, but actress Julia Fox has a small role in the movie, and I haven’t seen her since Uncut Gems, so it was nice to see her pop up, and I hope to see her in more films in the near future because she’s really fun and talented.
If I had one word to describe it, I would use tight. Every actor plays the scene and character very well and understands the material; all the shots are well choreographed and executed; the cinematography is so natural and seamless; and man oh man does it have one Mind F’er of a twist that really drives the whole film home… I give it five stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
It was a very nice surprise since I wasn’t expecting much from the movie, but it was like going to a candy store, wanting a chocolate coin, and then finding an actual gold coin like… What a good score, lol.
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