The writer Christopher Isherwood put it this way, in his novel “Goodbye to Berlin”: “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.”
The not-thinking part may not apply because the technology is so thoughtfully deployed, but two films released in early 2025 build on this notion of observational perspective. “The Nickel Boys,” already reviewed and, I think, the pinnacle American achievement of the past year, tells its story from the elegantly unscripted perspective of two teenage boys, with the camera capturing what we see through one set of eyes. Let’s look at it from one side, then the other. Other films have tried variations on this approach, rarely with results so true and beautiful.
“The Presence,” a ghost story from director Steven Soderbergh, cuts it down to a single perspective. We, the audience, are the camera, and the camera is the unseen spectral being haunting an ordinary house purchased by a troubled family of four. It’s the setup for screenwriter David Koepp’s paradox: a confined yet highly mobile scenario, 85 minutes long.
The first roving shot glides under and around the new house, which is an old house—a turn-of-the-century charmer, with fine wood trim and a nod to a director/cinematographer (Soderbergh, who also edited). The flow, filmed with lightweight, wide-lens cameras. The new family, the Paynes, reach agreement on their offer with the agent in near-record time. Rebekah, played by Lucy Liu, wants a house for the public school in her district for the benefit of her apparently favorite child, high schooler Tyler (Eddie Maddie). Tyler’s sister, Chloe, is closed inside a shell of grief. In bits and pieces, her parents—”This Is Us’s” Chris Sullivan plays her conflicted-eyed but sympathetic father—and her dead-eyed brother play Chloe’s recently deceased best friend, a Victim of apparent drug overdose.
Chloe is the sad heart of the story, and Kailyn Liang navigates her conflicted, messy feelings about having a sibling, her apparently mismatched parents and the realization that someone or something in the new house. Has taken an interest. In any movie, if a character looks directly into the camera, you notice. Here, when Liang does so, it is a quick and necessary establishing shot of Chloe – not the usual panoramic establishing shot of a new location, but a rule of visual engagement, acknowledged. We are the soul; Chloe looks at us, even though she can’t quite do it.
The purpose of the ghost in “Presence” remains unclear for a while. There are moments when, like the invisible rabbit in “Harvey,” the title character makes himself known, at one point moving Chloe’s textbooks from the bed to the desk when he runs out of the room. Are. With the introduction of an important character from outside the family, Tyler’s newfound high school friend Ryan (West Mulholland), the story tightens the knots of things, as Chloe pursues her own, edgy relationship with this boy of uncertain motives. Relationship has developed.
Koepp’s a craftsman, working on every side of every street in and out of Hollywood, from massive franchises to his own three projects with Soderbergh. (“Black Bag” opens later this year.) I loved their previous collaboration, “Kimi”; If “Presence” falls a bit short of that one, it’s because Koepp and Soderbergh are too casual about a couple of plot points, Rebecca’s legal and financial dilemmas for one. In contrast, the climate turn probably didn’t require a huge hunk of spelling everything out; What we see is enough.
And even with its flaws, there’s plenty of “presence”, too. It focuses on cases of depression and grief, and how some parents look the other way when their children’s words or behavior cry out for the opposite. The film operates with a nicely unpredictable rhythm, with both short and long shots ending abruptly, sometimes comically, popping us into the next one. The guiding spirit that we experience in the “presence” cannot interfere in persistent ways in the affairs of our chosen family. But to that well-worn reservation, its creators would likely respond with a simple reminder: Some rules of engagement were broken.
“Appearance” – 3 stars (out of 4)
MPA Rating: R (for violence, drug content, language, sexuality and teen drinking)
Running Time: 1:25
How to watch: Premieres Fri. in theaters. 24 January