Steven Soderbergh’s films are always worth watching and he returns with this unusual ghost story. A family move into a new house and soon young Chloe (Callina Liang), grieving the death of her best friend, begins to sense something strange living with them.
This has been marketed as a horror film, right down to all bar one of the trailers before it being for very gory movies. However, it is not that at all. The entire story is shown through the eyes of a ghost, or maybe ghosts, with only one possible sighting of it at the film’s climax. Initially, I thought that might have been a filmic device that would be distracting, like in The Nickel Boys recently. Instead, it works well, enabling Soderbergh’s camera to roam smoothly around the house in a series of long, fluid takes.
So, if this is not a horror movie, what is it? I would say a study of a family in crisis. As well as Chloe struggling with her mental health, her parents, Rebekah and Chris, played by Lucy Liu and the brilliant Chris Sullivan are far from happy in their marriage. Chris has always gone along with what his wife wants, thinking she is really out of his league, but now she seems to have got involved in some unspecified illegal activity at work and he does not know if he can stay with her. Furthermore, Rebekah absolutely dotes on her arrogant, foul-mouthed son, Tyler (Eddy Maday), almost totally ignoring her daughter.
This is all beautifully written by David Koepp, who really captures the fractures that are gradually tearing apart. If you are still looking for something scary, that is delivered towards the end, when, with the kids left alone for the weekend, Tyler makes the mistake of inviting his psychotic friend, Ryan (West Mulholland) over.
Set entirely in the house, this is an unusual, intelligently written and very satisfying drama.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10