(Review of Presence; and The People Before)
PRESENCE.
Back in 1933, Bernhard Vorhaus directed a British quota quickie called The Ghost Camera. This title might have been dusted down by Steven Soderbergh for Presence, as he wields his subjective camera in such a way as to make it a spectral observer of a domestic drama that manages to build suspense and hint at menace without feeling the need to resort to genre clichés.
Following a lengthy handheld track through an empty and darkened house, estate agent Cece (Julia Fox) rushes in from the rain in time to greet the Paynes - Rebekah (Lucy Liu), husband Chris (Chris Sullivan), and teenage children, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang). Rebekah is eager to seal the deal, as she wants Tyler to go to the local school that has a winning swimming team. However, Chris is concerned that the move is coming too soon for Chloe, who is getting over a couple of recent traumas at her school. While her brother scrolls his phone, Chloe wanders upstairs into a bedroom with peach walls. As the camera lingers on the landing, she turns back to look as though she's seen something.
When the decorators come to repaint the wall mint green, one of the workers refuses to enter the room, as he feels there's something odd about it. Shortly after moving in, Chloe senses a presence as she's settling down to sleep and wonders if it's her recently deceased best friend, Nadia. Meanwhile, Rebekah is getting anxious phone calls about the legality of a financial transaction she has handled and she tells Tyler (who's her favourite) during a late-night kitchen chat that it's okay to make mistakes for the right reasons.
Chris doesn't go along with this approach and wants them to get help for Chloe over her anxiety issues after she seems jumpy after finding books she had left on the bed had levitated on to her desk while she was in the shower. He criticises Rebekah for always ducking issues and she takes offence. She does so again when he suggests taking Chloe to a female therapist, as Rebekah thinks her daughter needs time to process the sudden loss of two classmates rather than probing into her emotional depths. Following this exchange, Chris calls a lawyer friend to ask advice on the status of someone whose partner is involved in something shady. While he claims he's asking for a friend, he admits that he's not doing well and gets teary after he hangs up.
Chloe hooks up with Tyler's friend, Ryan (West Mulholland), who confides that her brother has a mean streak. She teases him about being reluctant to go up to her room, where they discuss her feelings about Nadia and his frustration that he has no control over the decisions shaping his life. They kiss, but no sooner has she peeled off her sweater than the top shelf in her closet crashes down and she feels a jolt as she edges across the room to inspect the damage.
When Chloe brings the `presence' up at the dinner table, Tyler accuses her of attention seeking and Chris loses his temper as harsh words are bandied. When Tyler comes to apologise later, he claims Chloe is milking the loss of friends who took drugs and only have themselves to blame for their deaths. Chris asks him to be more empathetic and wishes he would show more of his decent side, as he was estranged from his own sister for six years after high school. Nevertheless, Tyler is angry that Chloe's problems keep impacting on his own school career and reminds her that Ryan is a big man on campus and that he's lucky to have him as a friend.
A few days later, Tyler is telling the family how his pals pranked a girl named Simone at school. Chris and Chloe are angry that a photo of her humiliation has wound up online. But the argument is halted by the sound of Tyler's room being trashed and Chloe is convinced it's Nadia showing her disapproval at her brother's actions. Assembling on the decking, the Paynes try to process what has happened and Chloe insists that she is staying because she knows Nadia is trying to help rather than harm them. Rebekah is baffled, but Chris agrees that life has its mysteries and suggests that they don't let matters spiral out of control.
He contacts Cece, who assures them that there has been no reported paranormal activity in the 100 year-old house and agrees to send round Carl (Lucas Papaelias) and his wife, Lisa (Natalie Woolams-Torres), who is a medium. She senses the presence of someone named Blue (which is Chloe's middle name), but can't tell why she is in the house or what she needs to go in order to rest again. Rebekah and Tyler are sceptical, but Chloe remains convinced that Nadia is watching over her (as the camera retreats up the stairs and hides in Chloe's closet).
It remains there while Chloe and Ryan have sex. But, when he spikes her fruit juice, the presence scoots across the room to jolt the bedside table so the glass spills. While Ryan cleans the glass in the bathroom, they plot to spend the night together when Rebekah and Chris are away at a function and he promises to take care of Tyler so they don't get disturbed.
One night, Chris comes to tell Chloe how special she is and implores her not to change. He confides about his mother's Catholicism and about how he finds anything ethereal to be confusing. She hugs him for being so vulnerable and for looking out for her. But, when Lisa returns to say she's had a dream about a window and warns that the presence is related to something that has yet to happen, he's too eager to avoid annoying Rebekah by letting her back into the house that he ushers her away (as the camera surveys the scene from the window in Chloe's room).
Reminding Chloe that some bad decisions impact on lifetimes, Chris heads off with Rebekah to a company do that he hopes can get her off the hook with her boss. Chloe promises to behave and tells Ryan that she feels uncomfortable with drugging Tyler so they can be alone. Having brought up a spiked drink for her, Ryan pours on the self-pity to put Chloe off her guard and he is about to smother her with cling film (as he had done her friends) when the presence scurries downstairs to rouse Tyler in time to come charging into his sister's room and barge her assailant out of the window. The camera halts and looks down at the crumpled bodies on the decking.
As Chloe grabs something from her closet, as the family prepares to move out, Rebekah lingers alone for a final few moments. She goes to the living-room mirror and sees Tyler looking out at her. Her screams bring Chris and Chloe inside and they console her, as the camera/presence slips past them and out through the front door to rise high above the quaint blue house and ascend into the sky.
Operating under the auspices of Peter Andrews (a Soderbergh pseudonym), the camera gives the most eye-catching performance in this moody, simmering, but never scary ghost story. Not that the `presence' can exactly be called a `ghost', as its form or identity is never revealed. Maybe it's Chloe's Catholic grandmother or maybe it's just the decent man that Chris had detected inside his son. Either way, Soderbergh skillfully conveys its omnipresentness, while reminding viewers of the sleight of hand that is cinema.
With each sequence being a discreet take that ends with a cut to black, Soderbergh rather pushes his luck in claiming an editor's credit (under the alias Mary Ann Bernard, which he has borrowed from his parapsychologist mother), but his direction is astute, as he makes use of the confining interiors designed by April Lasky and dressed by Imogen Lee. His handling of the cast is also impressive, with the performances having an eavesdropped quality that is entirely commensurate with the restless wide-angle shooting style. Playing a teenager beset by doubts, mid-20s Canadian debutant Callina Liang carries the plot with assurance, while West Mulholland makes a detestably creepy tousle-haired villain, who plays the victim to gain the trust of his victims.
The denouement is given away during the medium's second visitation, but Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp tease out details, while leaving us none the wiser about what misdemeanour Rebekah has committed that puts her family's future at risk. Nor do we learn what Chris does all day or how Ryan knows the dead girls if the Paynes have just moved to a new house in a different school district. But such gaps only add to the intrigue of a story whose timbre is deftly underlined by the shifts from solo piano to Herrmannesque strings in Zack Ryan's accomplished score. Since bursting on to the scene with sex, lies and videotape (1989), Soderbergh has delighted in making movies that feel composed of solved challenges. This is another completed puzzle, but considerable satisfaction can be derived from watching the pieces slot into place.
THE PEOPLE BEFORE.
A decade after he debuted with Keeping Rosy (2014), director Steve Reeves returns to the big screen with an adaptation of Charlotte Northedge's bestselling thriller, The People Before. Once again, advertising copywriter Mike Oughton is responsible for the screenplay, as he was for Reeves's 2011 short, Taking Life.
Leaving London after a burglary, Jess (Liz White) and Pete (Ray Fearon) move into Maple House, a large property on the outskirts of a Suffolk village. She's disappointed by how drab the place looks when they first arrive on a rainy day and find a dead rat on the floor in the main room. Her mother (Frances Barber) is less than impressed and raises a glass without enthusiasm on moving day, which sees son Archie (Jake Siame) find a rabbit's foot in his new bedroom. But he doesn't spend the first night there, as he has a bad dream and barges in on his parents getting frisky and Pete is frustrated when Jess cossets the boy.
Left to her own devices after Pete gets the train to London and Archie starts his new school, Jess takes pictures of the house before wandering into town. She confides to feeling like an outsider to artist-cum-gallery owner Eve (Imelda May), who has returned to the area after being sent to school in Ireland. But she's rattled by an encounter with Trevor (), a neighbour who is angry because his dog has been hurt trying to get a skinned rabbit it has found in the undergrowth by her gate.
Bothered by a weed she finds growing in the main room, Jess brings in an expert (John Thompson), who confirms she's got Japanese knotweed in the garden. He promises to get rid of it, but it adds to her sense of unease, which she takes out on Pete, who is chastised for getting to escape each day and meet friendly people. However, he's also ticked off for perusing a gambling site on his phone, as he's obviously had debt problems in the past.
When Jess calls after being disturbed by a window sliding open, Pete hides the fact he's playing cards and insists he's too busy with a major project to work from home. Cross at being left alone, Jess is distressed after finding the boy cowering in a cupboard from the man who has vowed to come to the house. She tries to reassure him, but dreams of herself in a blue dress on the swing strung from a tree in which Archie is trapped.
After introducing him to Eve at the gallery (and being cross when she duped them into buying two expensive cards), Jess discovers from Miranda (Mika Simmons) at school that a boy of nine died in a fall from a tree at the house. When she asks Pete if they can sell up and go to Ipswich, he gets shirty and rolls over in bed without any attempt at finding out more or reassuring his wife about her concerns.
He perks up when Eve comes to the house. Indeed, Jess thinks she hears them having sex on the kitchen table when he ducks out of putting Archie to bed so he can see her phone portfolio. The day had begun badly when Archie had found a maggot-riddled rabbit under the swing and Jess had also been put out when Eve lectured her for planning to modernise a house of great architectural significance. But it nosedives after Pete suggests that Eve moves into the annexe because she will soon be homeless because the landlord has increased the rent on the gallery.
Seething at an upper window as she watches Pete and Archie help Eve unpack the car, Jess scowls as she burns rubbish in a brazier at dusk, while Eve starts work on a painting of the house after having spent the day showing Archie the tunnel that leads from a secret panel in his wardrobe. On another day, she meets him from school and takes him to a gravestone in the churchyard. When Jess catches her flirting with Pete, they are interrupted by Archie crying because he's seen the scary man again.
His grandmother thinks he should see a child psychiatrist, but she also reckons Jess is being taken for a ride by Eve, who is living rent free in return for her painting. But Jess is no saint, as she uses the trip to London to see her lover, Miles (Mark Stobbart), who is frustrated by the fact she fled when things got too heavy for her and she conned Pete into thinking she needed to leave because Archie had been spooked by bumping into the burglar.
At a lunch with the architect, Eve unveils her painting (to which she has added some of her own blood) and Pete gushes over it. However, Graham (Simon Hepworth) and Miranda (Mika Simmons) are puzzled because they thought they had been hired to rethink not restore the property. When Jess dashes out to attend to something burning in the kitchen, Eve takes the hot baking tray while Jess struggles with the fire alarm and Eve's hands get burnt when Jess reminds her she's a guest. She has to repeat the warning when she finds Eve hanging the picture without consultation and Jess seethes when Eve blames Pete for not sharing the decision they had reached. Meanwhile, the knotweed man informs Jess that someone planted the pest on purpose and implies it will be very difficult to get rid of it.
Returning from a run (which is merely an excuse to get far enough away to scream in frustration), Jess sees Eve arguing with a man who claims to be the former owner of Maple House. He warns Jess to be careful with Eve, who has locked herself in her room and is scribbling furiously, as she was when her parents sent her away following the death of her younger brother (seen in occasional cutaways of siblings drawing the house and colouring furiously with pencils).
Pete confronts Eve about the stranger, who she claims was a trespasser. She agrees to move out, but steals the secret phone Jess uses to call Miles and threatens to tell Pete. Moreover, she collects Archie from school and hides with him in the wardrobe tunnel. Having learned from Trevor that Eve pushed her brother out of the tree and drove her mother to suicide, Jess calls Pete and he arrives with Dom (Craig Russell), who turns out to be Eve's other brother.
He goes straight to the tunnel, as Jess berates Pete for bypassing the estate agent when buying the house because he needed to save cash to pay off a gambling debt. While they bicker, Archie runs into the garden because he's seen the scary man again. When he climbs the tree, Eve clambers up to help him down before letting herself fall backwards. Any hope Jess has of being free of her seem dashed, however, when she receives a card from the gallery at her new address and the film ends on a track through the knotweed sprouting inside the house that gives way to a flash shot of Eve glaring out at us from the shadows.
Despite having had a decade to work on their sophomore project, Reeves and Oughton repeat many of the problems that had stymied its predecessor, despite the best efforts of Maxine Peake. Liz White also works hard to keep this hoary melodrama on trackk, but she is consistently thwarted by issues that stem from the failure to lay the groundwork for the storyline. By opting not to establish Jess or Pete as individuals or as a twosome and by withholding so many details surrounding the move to Suffolk, the film-makers deprive viewers of reasons to root for strangers who feel more like ciphers shoehorned into a contrived scenario than ordinary people stressed into making a difficult decision that has come back to haunt them.
Even though things are strained between Jess and Pete, there's too little chemistry between White and Ray Fearon for them to convince as a couple. The family dynamic is also dubious, as Reeves proves unable to help young Jake Siame build a rapport with either parent. He's more at home with Imelda May, but her oppugnancy is too obviously signposted on first meeting by the reference to being a bad girl that follows on from the opening shot of two children drawing pictures of Maple House.
Such rushed scene-setting extends to a failure to provide the audience with a sense of where the property lies in relation to the town, while the coincidental release of Steven Soderberg's Presence exposes the folly of depriving viewers of a chance to get their bearings by not presenting the layout of the house. Mike McMillin's camerawork is solid enough, especially when achieving the mizzly exterior views, while Daniel Clive McCallum's score unsettles without being over-emphatic. Let's hope Reeves and Oughton don't have to wait another 10 years to release their next feature, as their first two have been undeniably interesting, in spite of the flaws.
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