Presence

Horror has a long history of exploiting mental illness to create its monsters, but there are still relatively few films which place us inside the head of a person struggling with it, a person who desperately doesn’t want to become a danger to others. Christian Schultz and Thomas Johnston’s Presence is such a film, though it also has a number of other things going on, and some of these intersect awkwardly to dilute its overall effect.

We follow Jen (Jenna Lyng Adams), a woman whose struggle to manage her emotions is apparent at the outset, as is the difficulty she has had in maintaining a social life, probably as a result of people’s reactions to this. Two important figures in her life appear early on. There’s Sam (Alexandria DeBerry), who has apparently shown no interest in her for some time, but who turns up out of the blue to give her a curious-looking pendant and an invitation. Then there is Keaton (Octavio Pisano), her still-possessive ex-boyfriend, with whom she shares an affectionate relationship with awkward boundary issues. When Keaton disappears and she can’t remember what happened, Jen becomes increasingly concerned that she might have killed him.

Could she have committed murder, disposed of a body and covered the trail, in her condition? Perhaps simply waiting at home would lead to some kind of clarity – a visit from him, alive after all, or a visit from the police, which one doesn’t get the impression she would mind. But Sam’s invitation means that she must leave her home, and her whole reality, and walk down a pier surrounded by small yachts to embark upon the giant one at the end, to be greeted by a man who says “Welcome to the 1%.”

This is David (Dave Davis), a young, lean, tanned billionaire of the sort who usually only appear in bad romance novels. Sam has clearly been manoeuvring to get into a relationship with him, but he seems more intrigued by the stand-offish Jen. Thankfully, the film does not concern itself with tawdry romantic drama – there is more at stake here. The zip design company which Jen and Sam set up at some point in the past has become hot property, and the plan is for the yacht to take them to an island where they will make a deal which will propel them into the global elite. Over dinner, David tries to explain what this means, how much power they will have. Sam is excited, but for Jen, who is already haunted by the thought of what she might have done with just a small amount of power, it’s a nightmare.

There are interesting ideas here around how Jen’s difficulty in identifying the boundaries of what’s real mirror the social dislocation which stems from moving from most people’s reality to that of the super-rich, with an implication that it is impossible to fully understand one position from the other. This, in turn, points up dangers on a societal level, even though the drama itself remains intimate. Schultz and Johnston are wary of caricatures and David comes across as a pretty ordinary guy, for good or ill. When he first recognises Jen’s problems, he’s sympathetic – perhaps more so than her friends have been – and he takes the resulktant issues in his stride. He has a secret, however, and consequently he has a fear which risks unbalancing him. here the film lurches into Gothic territory and dallies with the supernatural in a way which, whilst never fully convincing, raises further questions around the central themes.

Ultimately too ambitious for its own good – a quality which is not without irony – Presence nevertheless showcases some interesting work. Adams is excellent, making her character come across very much as a caring, rational person trying to cope with experiences which make less and less sense. At key moments we see the world from just over her left shoulder, conjuring the sense of an additional presence which was once interpreted as supernatural (and might be understood that way here), but is now recognised as a common phenomenon in certain types of schizophrenia. It’s not always clear who is in control of her behaviour, but if she ever seems like a monster, she is far from the only one.

Presence may feature a dark and stormy night or two too many, and cannot escape the weight of cliché simply because it is beautifully shot, but there is a lot here to admire and it’s certainly more interesting than its haunted boat premise might suggest.