One of the great joys of Steven Soderbergh is you never know what you’re going to get. He has his slumps, but any time it looks like he might just have lost it, he comes back with something thrillingly playful. And so, after a dull run, culminating in 2023’s limp Magic Mike’s Last Dance, he’s on the upswing again with this highly original ghost story.
Actually, ‘ghost story’ may not be entirely apt. It is, as the title says, about a non-specific presence. We view everything from the perspective of something that’s confined to an empty house. It’s not clear how long it’s been there, nor what it wants, but through Soderbergh’s creeping camera we see everything it sees. And what it mostly sees is a family suppressing ghosts of their own.
Rebekah (Lucy Liu), Chris (The Knick’s Chris Sullivan), and their two children, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang), move into the house, apparently driven to relocate after one of Chloe’s friends died in horrible circumstances. Chris is worried that Chloe isn’t dealing with her pain. Rebekah is more focused on her beloved son and his school athletic career, as well as staying out of trouble for some unspecified illegal activity connected to her work. Chloe is quietly going on with her life, but the presence seems fixated on her, watching her from her closet and moving her things around.
It’s the most exciting thing Soderbergh’s done in some time
If you’re expecting something akin to Poltergeist or The Conjuring, that’s not what this is. It’s unsettling, but it’s closer to David Lowery’s 2017 movie A Ghost Story, steeped in sadness rather than scariness. Even when it begins flinging things around in an apparent rage, this presence seems consumed more by frustration and longing than anger.
The script, by Stir of Echoes’ David Koepp, is simple in its structure and quite broad in its characterisation, but its straightforward plotting lets Soderbergh’s style be the star. He really gives a performance as the presence, his camera moving in ways that clearly suggest panic, embarrassment or fear. He gives the audience the voyeuristic sense of spying on things that are none of their business.
This is very effective, experimental filmmaking – and at 85 minutes it never becomes indulgent – and the most exciting thing Soderbergh’s done in quite some time.
In cinemas worldwide Fri Jan 24.