The Ghost In 'Presence' Will Leave You Asking: Who Is She???

Warning: This review contains spoilers. 

Ghosts have haunted cinema for forever. They've been a tender lover with gentle hands; a friend to all; and a besuited cynic with a solid sense of humor. Oh, sorry. That's just the male ones. If they happen to be female, they're child-sacrificing witches (The Conjuring), evil teenagers (The Ring), women who've been brutally murdered by their husbands (The Grudge), little girls robbed of their futures (The Shining twins), and finally, mothers driven mad and murderous by lost love or children (Mama, The Woman in Black, The Curse of La Llorona, etc., etc.).

Where other subgenres of horror—from slasher to gothic fiction—extend empathy to those made monstrous by trauma, celebrate the resilience of a Final Girl, or make a bloody good time of women's rights and wrongs, ghost stories where women do the spooking can trend toward conservative women-exist-for-men-and-procreation propaganda. Female specters, it seems to me, are typically either unfit mothers or are desperately trying to become one. Their heartbreak is almost always caused by a man, and they only vacillate between spite and sobs.

I get it. Horror is at its best when it functions as a reflection of real-life horrors. Women's victimization from birth until death is embedded in the political, social, cultural, and global fabric. But when it comes to ghost stories, it often seems as if there are only two plausibilities for a woman even in the afterlife: vengeance against the society that mistreated her, or trying to keep someone else from suffering through it. (Crimson Peak, Last Night in Soho, Gothika).

Enter Steven Soderbergh's, Presence. In the new family drama Trojan-horsed as a supernatural thriller (out Friday), the ghost's purpose seems—refreshingly—like both pettiness and protection. And in fact, the nameless, formless, and speechless being is somehow so much more interesting—probably because its POV is also yours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GUli0vgb4Q

The story follows a semi-functioning, fully-flawed family comprised of Rebekah (Lucy Liu), a part-time girl boss, full-time boy mom and male sympathizer; Chris (Chris Sullivan), a nurturer just doing his best to keep everyone copacetic; Tyler (Eddy Maday), a star athlete and garden variety misogynist; and, finally, Chloe (Callina Liang), an empathic and ghost-attuned girl grappling with grief for the first time following the tragic death of her friend, Nadia. After they move into a sweeping home (in the school district Rebekah thinks will earn Tyler an easy scholarship) sold by Cece the realtor (Julia Fox, who makes the most of her cameo), it's Chloe who first inuits that they're not alone.

Presence aptly sets itself apart from its predecessors not just with its ghost, but in its refusal to rely on jump scares and gimmicks. The presence in this story doesn't initially seem interested in wreaking havoc on the family. Flickering lights or falling objects, for instance, feel beneath it...at least, when it's not directed at Tyler in the third act. Instead, like us, it simply stands witness to their daily lives—Rebekah's drunken confessions to her son; Chris's phone calls to an attorney; Tyler's boasts about sending around intimate photos of a female classmate; and Chloe's crying.

As time passes, new questions about the family abound, though you're left to draw your own conclusions. What the hell is Rebekah up to at work? Will Chris leave her? Is Chloe going to be OK? But the ghost's intention seems, well, transparent. It spends most of its time in Chloe's room. It cleans up after her. Most obvious of all, it thwarts Tyler's inexplicably villainous friend, Ryan (West Mulholland)'s attempt to drug her. Its attention might be on everyone, but all of its most demonstrable care is reserved specifically for Chloe. Why? That's largely left up to the viewer's interpretation. The only thing a psychic employed by the family is able to detect about the presence is that it didn't originate in the home, and only appeared after Chloe did to guard against an event that's yet to take place.

That event, as we learn in the eye-popping finale is Ryan's drugging of Tyler and attempted murder of Chloe while their parents are out of town. Despite the presence's clear distaste for Tyler near the film's conclusion, it causes enough noise to alert him to his sister's peril. However, when Tyler tackles Ryan, they both fall from a window and, quite abruptly, die. The presence, however, lingers with Chloe.

Ridiculous as it may sound, despite not knowing anything about the ghost, it's decidedly not a stereotype. Apart from being observant, it also manages to be intelligent, occasionally very funny, and a caretaker...if only for a teenage girl. Thus, it's no surprise that I not only interpreted it to be a woman but if we're being really honest: a very cunty one (complimentary), at that.

"I want to know more about her!" I texted multiple friends after leaving the screening earlier this month. However, upon perusing Reddit this week, it seems like most thought the ghost to be...Tyler. Citing the psychic's explanation that time for those in the spirit realm is different from here, and Rebekah's vision of her son as they leave the house in the conclusion, multiple threads make the case for Tyler. The theory is fair, but I focused on a different part of the psychic's explanation that I found more striking. At one point, she tells Chloe that she's "more alive than anyone on this earth" because she knows loss, hence her sensitivity and immediate recognition of the presence. By comparison, Rebekah doubted there was a ghost to begin with. It was only after she was wracked by grief that she was receptive to being haunted and saw her son again.

So long as no one involved with the film confirms otherwise, I'm choosing to stick with my own interpretation. If I'm wrong, that's perfectly OK! I appreciate that Koepp's story has prompted this much analysis. Maybe I just need a feminist ghost story that allows women who've passed on to be more compelling right now. Or, maybe I just have a difficult time believing that a boy might protect a girl when too many—very demonstrably—don't. In this socio-political moment, I'm most comforted by my hopeful read: man's only constant is that they inevitably destroy themselves. All you have to do is simply watch.

If the ghost is Tyler, however, I suppose my feminist take still sort of holds up even if it has a bleaker bottom line: Men are good...after they die.