Steven Soderberg is a director who cannot be pigeonholed. He has done everything from small movies with unknown stars to something like the Ocean's Trilogy with massive movie stars. He is one of those directors who keeps things interesting, and I am always on board to see what he does next.

His new movie, "Presence," is a ghost story told from the ghost's perspective. The movie opens with a camera moving through an empty house, and it rushes to the window when a noise is heard outside as the realtor just pulled into the driveway. The entire movie is done in many long takes as the presence goes to different rooms, listening in on the members of the family who just moved in.

Despite centering around a ghost, I would not categorize this as a horror movie. There are no jumpscares, no gruesome murders, and no Ouiji boards. The movie really is just listening in on various conversations. It is how the audience pieces together the family's dynamic and history. The daughter recently lost a friend to a fentanyl overdose, the son is a cocky jock, the mother is involved in something shady at work and has a bizarre attachment to her son, and the father is doing his best to be supportive of everyone.

The movie didn't fully explore the concept of what the presence could and couldn't do- traditionally, a ghost's powers are wildly inconsistent in movies. I would have liked to see a more concrete set of rules that this ghost followed. There are times when it can interact with things and times when it can't. Those seem to depend on when it will be more dramatic for the plot.

I enjoyed it but did not love it. I think that maybe if it had been more of a horror movie, there would have been much more fun. In this case, the subject matter, drama in the family, is kind of heavy, so there are no real moments for it to embrace its premise.

7/10

Rated R for violence, drug material, language, sexuality and teen drinking

1h 24m