Start the week with a film: In ‘Presence’, a ghost bears witness to a fraying family

Prolific Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh’s Presence was made in 2024, before the espionage drama Black Bag. Now out in India on Lionsgate Play, Presence revolves around an imaginative concept: the camera as a ghost.

The 85-minute minute film is seen entirely from the point of view of the camera, which stands in for a spirt that occupied an empty house. The ghost watches Chris (Chris Sullivan), Rebakah (Lucy Liu) and their teenaged children move into the beautifully designed residence.

Rebekah is especially happy since the relocation will benefit her son Tyler (Eddy Maday), whom she openly favours over her troubled daughter Chloe (Callina Liang). Tyler settles into his new school, bringing home his friend Ryan (West Mullholland). Chloe tries to emerge out of her shell. Things seem normal enough until the presence announces itself.

Rather than the ordinary twist waiting at the end of David Koepp’s script, Presence impresses as an exercise in perspective. Like hidden but untethered spy equipment, the camera glides from one room to the other, bearing witness to the family members revealing themselves bit by bit. Soderbergh, who has shot and edited the film himself, uses long takes and smooth movements to build up the tension.

With only mildly creepy moments, Presence doesn’t qualify as a horror film. Instead, Presence serves as a metaphor for the truth about tragedies that is hiding in plain sight, waiting to spring up on people. The camera acquires enough of a life of its own to be counted as a member of the cast – this movie’s most hard-working and versatile performer.

Also start the week with these films:

‘The Master’ is a masterful study of a cult leader and his follower

Revisiting ‘Shakti’, the other Ramesh Sippy classic

‘Nickel Boys’ erases the distance between character and viewer