Presence

 There are slow burns, and then there are movies that barely even get to smolder. Presence is one of these by design - A whole movie built around the point of view of that which haunts a haunted house, letting us borrow its senses as it effortlessly glides through halls and rooms and eavesdrops on the living in long, unbroken takes, until it goes back to slumber and awaken again some time later for another long haunting session.

 These vignettes, which are presented chronologically, do build up to a narrative: The ghost awakens to an empty, immaculate house on the eve of its sale, and witnesses a new family moving in - A work-obsessed mother (Lucy Liu) who is engaging in some, ahem, creative finance at her workplace, a passive father (Chris Sullivan) growing increasingly concerned that things are getting away from him, a complete douchebag of a son (Eddy Maday) and a daughter (Callina Liang) who is distraught after the recent death of her best friend to an overdose and often seems to sense that something is amiss in the house.

 Each thread of the story is advanced inch by inch by the off-hand comments, hushed conversations and private phone calls the presence is privy to; while the script is often clumsy, I tend to find putting information together in this way engaging, and it makes up for the slow pace and the relative lack of incident.
 Things are turned on their head, gently, when the presence makes itself known in no uncertain terms; And then... well, the family carries on, mostly as usual, with the added burden of trying to figure out what to do about the ghost. There is a reason for the haunting, which spirals around the menace posed by a surly, mopey teen who's basically a mess of red flags bundled sloppily into human form (West Mulholland). But that whole lackluster pseudo-thriller element is very poorly written, right up to an abrupt, underwhelming resolution.

 It's easy to see what attracted director Steven Soderbergh to the project - it's got a certain... I don't know, let's call it formal purity, and technical challenges aplenty. Both of which are like catnip to the man who once directed Schizopolis, and he makes it work beautifully. The gliding, roving camerawork really conveys the illusion of being a hidden eavesdropper, to the point where it generates a mild jolt whenever someone somehow acknowledges the presence. A beautiful melancholic soundtrack by Zack Ryan also does wonders for the film's hypnotic feel.

 I wasn't that impressed with the script, which has a strong central idea and some interesting subtleties, but buckles under the weight of its crappy villain and his designs and some groan-worthy dialog and character work; Got to love the douchebag son proudly regaling his family with the tale of a very creepy, shitty prank he played on a female student that includes sharing a sexy pic online solicited under false pretences. David Koepp, ladies and gentlemen. The guy was good -both actually good and the good kind of bad- once upon a time, but these last few decades have been rough and he should never be allowed to write anything related to youth culture; I still haven't forgiven him for using a flash mob as a plot device that one time.

 To be fair, the story here is not terrible or anything, it just has a few too many rough patches... and for what it's worth, a revelation at the end does recontextualize a few earlier events and adds a posthumous (heh) theme to the film. 

 The acting is pretty great, especially from Liu and Sullivan, and Liang credibly anchors the film. There are next to no special effects besides the film's impeccable technical execution, and don't expect any scares - horror is a technically correct but very misleading label here. Maybe existential horror for millennials, as they watch the couple here effortlessly buy a house.

 But no- treat it as a naturalistic drama instead, with some genre elements to add colour, and you should be golden. Despite an almost pulpy premise, it's one of those films that will be insufferable unless you actually engage with it, so your patience with deliberately paced arthouse fare will definitely be a factor. Personally I thought it was a bit slight, but very worthwhile.