Presence **
The Steven Soderbergh
American film, 1 h 25
The installation in a new house in a posh district represents a social ascent for the Payne family. This great home is a thunderbolt for Rebecca, the mother (Lucy Liu), who has hardly left Chris, her husband (Chris Sullivan), other choice than that of Acquiesce. During the development work, one of the workers strangely refuses to enter the room intended for Chloe, the younger girl of the family (Callina Liang).
Marked by the death of her best friend Nadia, the teenager is soon to feel a presence in her room. She feels observed. Objects change space. His father notices his nervousness. His minimized mother, concentrated as always on Tyler, their elder (Eddy Maday).
Steven Soderbergh, whose taste for cinematographic experiments have been known for a few years is trying out of the genre with his first “haunted house” film. Everything is filmed there on a subjective and high-angle camera. A device that gives the feeling of a presence whose gaze is permanently placed on the house and its inhabitants. This unit of place and point of view gives its power to Presence and is reminiscent Insane, A fully shot film with an iPhone in a psychiatric hospital.
A film with a strong atmosphere
But the scenario is not completely up to these interesting biases. The cohesion of the Payne family vacillates. The tensions between Rebecca and her husband will grow, and Tyler does not show any compassion for the trouble of his sister. When he boasts of the harassment of a high school student, the presence breaks everything in his room. Now Chloe is no longer the only one to perceive her existence …
This high -fed genre film would have deserved a more excavated story and better written characters than this Manichean and unpleasant family quartet. Despite the dysfunctions, there are no final “falls”, as spectacular as unlikely.
(tagstotranslate) Cinema critic