Shot entirely in one location with a small camera with a wide-angle lens, Steven Soderbergh's slight ghost tale in suburban America is a well made, well executed little genre exercise. It starts with a POV shot of both in and out of a spacious but empty house in a suburban neighborhood, giving us the layout. The camera lingers behind the half shut closet door looking through the shutter of a second story room then the screen goes to black. This cutting to black happens throughout the film. Rather than cutting to another scene, Soderbergh let the shot end with black screen, like 80s John Carpenter films. It's an effective way to show the time progression. But it might also have to do with the continuous recording time limits in those small Sony cameras he used. A family, consisting of Dad (Chris Sullivan), Mom (Lucy Liu) and their two children in high school, Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Mayday) move in soon after. Mom's insistence about it being in the good school district and their son's swimming career, we can gather that Tyler is mom's favorite.
As they settle in in their respective rooms, we realize that it's the same room that the camera lingered in the beginning is the one Chloe moved in. With her uneasy stares, Chloe might be sensing that she's not alone.
Through the interactions within the family, we find out that there were recent deaths in Chloe's life - two of her close school friends died mysteriously and she is having mental health issues. Tyler being a jock and favorite of mom, her dad tries to be an ally to Chloe, albeit passively. It is also revealed that their controlling mom, always on her laptop, always busy with work, might be involved in some illegal white collar crime and their marriage is not going well.
Tyler's friend Ryan (West Mulholland), a cool kid from school visits and befriends Chloe and they make out when no one's home. Ryan says some creepy things about being in control while he cooes Chloe, "You are in control and you make decisions," while trying to slide in date rape drug in her drinks while she's not looking. Something's wrong about the guy and the ghost/presence, knocks off the drink just in time.
Paranormal activities start happening around the house - things get knocked off, the lights flicker, and it's not only Chloe who experiences these things anymore. So the medium is called. There's a presence in the house and something bad is going to happen - the medium tells the family. Mom is skeptical and the medium lady is not welcome after the first visit.
Soderbergh and his script writer David Koepp concoct a simple story and it's very well realized on screen. As usual, there's not much fat on the plot and dialog and everything is very succinct. That's the thing about Soderbergh though. There is nothing much there. There's no social/political/racial context to the story. There's a little bit on the power and consent related to the husband and wife and also the manipulative serial rapist and his victims, but when all said and done, Presence is not that memorable, just like any other Soderbergh film. Yes it's a cool small genre exercise in a formalist way with the POV, but it's so devoid of any context that it leaves your head as soon as you leave the theater.
