- Steven Soderbergh's latest film "Presence" is told from the perspective of a ghost.
- The spirit haunts a family, but its identity isn't revealed until the final minutes of the movie.
- Writer David Koepp spoke to BI about the twist and all the clues along the way.
"Presence" is a ghost story — with a twist.
The latest film from director Steven Soderbergh centers on a family — Rebekah (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan), and their teenage kids Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday) — who move into a new home and quickly realize they're being haunted. The titular "presence" initially makes itself known only to Chloe, who's struggling with grief and depression after the sudden death of her best friend Nadia.
Chloe at first believes the spirit actually is Nadia, who died of an apparent drug overdose before the events of the movie. The final few minutes of the film reveal the truth about the ghost's identity and what it was there for all along.
Here's a breakdown of the ending, along with what writer David Koepp had to say about all the clues woven in before the reveal.
Major spoilers ahead for "Presence."
Who was the ghost in "Presence"?
In the final act of the film, Ryan (West Mulholland), Tyler's friend from school who Chloe had secretly been hooking up with, drugs Tyler and Chloe with Ambien and attempts to kill Chloe by suffocating her with ultra-thin plastic wrap while she's incapacitated. He reveals that he did the same thing to Nadia, who didn't die of a drug overdose after all, and also to another local girl. He's a teenage serial killer.
The Presence, who previously had only been able to move small objects (like Chloe's school books, and a spiked drink that Ryan had tried to give Chloe earlier in the film), is unable to intervene and watches helplessly as Ryan tortures Chloe. As he's cutting off her air supply, he explains that he gets off on control. In the beginning of their sexual relationship, he gave Chloe the power to call the shots. Now, he's taken that away by drugging her, giving him the ultimate power over her — the power to take away her life.
To save Chloe, the Presence rushes downstairs and awakens Tyler, who's still knocked out from the drink Ryan gave him. A disoriented Tyler runs up to Chloe's bedroom and tackles Ryan to stop him, inadvertently throwing the both of them out the second-story window. The Presence looks down at their dead bodies on the driveway below (calling back to the psychic's ominous earlier warning that the spirit was there to stop something to do with "the window that doesn't open").
The film then jumps forward to show the family moving out of the house, some time after Tyler's death.
Rebekah, sensing something, goes to look in the now-empty house's vintage mirror and sees the ghost of Tyler smiling back at her — revealing he was the Presence all along, haunting his family and his past self. The film ends with Rebekah screaming and crying in grief, and Tyler's ghost, with its purpose now fulfilled, exiting the house for the first time. He seemingly drifts off to the afterlife, through the open door and up into the sky.
There are several hints at the "Presence" ending earlier in the movie
Koepp, who previously worked with Soderbergh on the 2022 thriller "Kimi" and partnered with him again for the upcoming "Black Bag," said the movie's twist is meant to be completely clear by the end. In fact, there are clues baked in throughout, which reward a second viewing.
One very big hint, Koepp points out, is when the psychic woman Chris brings in to commune with the spirit at the recommendation of their realtor (Julia Fox) mentions that time functions differently for the dead.
"We accept without hesitation that a ghost can have haunted a house for a hundred years and it's been there all this time," Koepp said. "But if time works like that, why can't it be haunting a house three months from now?"
That theory is confirmed later on when the psychic returns to the house right before the climactic ending. She warns Chris that she had a vision and believes the spirit is there to prevent something that has yet to happen — in this case, Chloe's death by Ryan's hand.
There's an even bigger hint when Tyler, a stereotypical popular athlete, tells his family about a cruel prank he and his friends pulled on a girl at school (tricking her into thinking a boy was trying to hook up with her). Chris and Chloe are horrified, while Rebekah, who's unhealthily devoted to Tyler and has blinders on when it comes to her son's behavior, laughs along with him. The spirit becomes enraged listening to Tyler speak and goes upstairs to his room, trashing it and revealing its existence to the entire family for the first time.
Koepp says the outburst is a moment of intense self-loathing for the ghost, who still doesn't quite know who it is, why it is, or what it needs to do — Tyler, in his death, suddenly recognizes what a bad person he was in life.
"In my mind, there was sort of like a memory wipe [after death] and you're remembering perhaps who you were," Koepp said. "I think he's remembering who he was and seeing more fully who he was and does not like it."
Of course, Tyler redeems himself in the end, making the ultimate sacrifice when he dies saving his sister from Ryan, who he brought into their lives to begin with.
It's only after Tyler fully recognizes who he was in life and completes his afterlife purpose by saving his sister that he's able to reveal his identity, appearing in the vintage mirror. But why does Ghost Tyler suddenly reveal himself to Rebekah, not Chloe, at the end of the movie?
According to Koepp, it's because Rebekah has now experienced the ultimate trauma: the death of her beloved child. Trauma, as the psychic's husband explained to the family earlier in the film, "unlocks" a sensitivity to otherworldly spirits. Chloe, who'd experienced the trauma of Nadia's death early on, was initially the most susceptible to sensing the Presence; now healed, Chloe doesn't see Tyler in the mirror, but Rebekah does.
"Presence" is a ghost story, but it's also a family drama and, in some ways, a coming-of-age film for the Presence (aka Tyler), who's "learning to be a ghost," as Koepp puts it.
"If you look at the opening shots of the movie, they're very tentative — they're looking around, trying to figure out what's going on. The presence is confused and a bit at sea," he said. "Then as things progress, the ability to reveal itself grows and then ultimately the ability to intervene in events. There's a lot of growth there."
"Presence" is in theaters now.
