The Mosley Review: Presence
Well here's something you don't see everyday and especially in this genre. The supernatural and paranormal genre are vast playgrounds of stories that you can craft and I love it when storytellers try something new within them. Of course we can easily have another haunting of a house or a spirit with unfinished business or even a past individual looking to for revenge and somehow the family in the house is connected to it. Funny enough, I just listed off a lot of films in that one sentence, but none of them equate to what this film did in such a fun and intimate way. What I truly loved is the perspective of the spirit experiencing the family and all the drama they have. Its as advertised, but what was intriguing was how connected you become with the spirit and how you the audience become it. It was a particularly immersive technique that set itself apart from your standard films that use the same trope to immerse you in the action. This film makes a conscious decision to avoid the easily over used story tropes of a spirit wreaking havoc or possession or actual contact with the presence at hand. I loved that and it truly kept you invested in the characters and the situations that occur.
Lucy Liu is always fantastic and she was great as the overly busy and somewhat oblivious mother, Rebecca. She was very much work focused almost the entire time and the moments she would engage with her husband or her kids, it was filled with a tension that was palpable. Chris Sullivan was great and humble as her husband, Chris. From the information you gleam from his conversations, the man is truly up against a wall and you really feel his pain as he expresses the disconnection between him and his wife. Eddy Maday was excellent and such a jerk as their teenage son, Tyler. We get to explore the high school drama of fitting in through his biting dialogue and his unrelenting jock attitude toward his sister. He was a bit of a momma's boy since Rebecca favored him more than her daughter. Callina Liang delivers a really strong performance as the troubled teen sister, Chloe. All the classic signs of crying out for help by acting out are there and you felt how isolated she felt in her own family. Her sensitivity with the paranormal comes into play in a few fun ways, but doesn't go the way you think. Her chemistry with her father was the best in the film in my opinion. There is a dinner scene that really was rough to experience and illustrated how divided the family really was. Natalie Woodlams-Torres was awesome as Lisa, the medium. She doesn't over state the obvious and she doesn't out stay her welcome in the story which added more levels of mystery. West Mulholland was fantastic as Chloe's love interest and manipulative drug pusher, Ryan. There is so much done with him and once things get tense with him, the level of fear really spikes and he did a fantastic portrayal of that one guy we all knew in high school that was secretly unstable.
The score by Zack Ryan was brilliantly placed at the right moments and punctuated the more emotional and haunting moments of the film. I loved the stillness of the atmosphere inside the home in the opening scene. Like I said before, the first person perspective of the spirit was truly immersive and I loved how it would sometimes slightly and sometimes aggressively interact with the environment or the characters indirectly. It was very smart to not have it speak as it would've truly destroyed the emotional gut punch of the last scene. It was a visually stunning and engaging story that is wonderfully unraveled by the great dialogue between the family. Definitely a fresh spin on the paranormal and supernatural genre that I think will be remembered for its willingness to avoid the obvious tropes. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
