Since his flirtation with retirement about a decade ago, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has been working at an almost feverish pace, cranking out film after film, usually genre exercises made swiftly, with light, adaptable technology such as iPhones (“Unsane,” “High Flying Bird”). His latest film, “Presence,” is another cinematic experiment, a ghost story seen from the point of view of well, the ghost.

Point-of-view filmmaking and its cinematic language of visual storytelling is in the conversation right now with the audacious “Nickel Boys,” directed by RaMell Ross, which uses a first-person perspective to tell the tragic story of two African American boys at an abusive reform boarding school in Florida in the 1960s. Ross places his camera in the eyes of the characters, often swapping between our two leads, while Soderbergh’s camera (literally, he also serves as the film’s cinematographer) takes on the view of an unknown spectral presence that occupies an empty home. This lonely presence gazes out the window as occupants arrive: first a real-estate agent, Cece (Julia Fox), and then a family of four, desperate to move into a new house.

With a script by David Koepp, “Presence” follows this family’s experience as they occupy the space. Lucy Liu is the hard-charging Rebecca, who makes an immediate offer on the house despite the weak reservations of her husband Chris (Chris Sullivan, of Soderbergh’s “The Knick”). She wants her star swimmer son Tyler (Eddy Maday) in the right school district, and fast. But our attention — via the presence — is drawn to Tyler’s melancholy sister, Chloe (Callina Liang), who lingers at the silver nitrate mirror, original to the century-old house.

Who or what this presence might be is never explicitly explained, but it is fixated on Chloe, who has recently experienced a loss, which we glean in snippets of conversations overheard by the presence as it floats from room to room, spying and peeking on private moments and chats between Rebecca and Chris, and Chloe in her room. Chris is concerned about his grieving daughter, whose best friend has passed away, seemingly from a drug overdose. They also allude to another girl she knew who died from an overdose, and Chris is worried about Chloe experimenting with substances.

Chris wants her in therapy, while Rebecca takes a hands-off approach with her daughter, focusing on Tyler’s accomplishments. Chris is troubled by his daughter’s state of mind as well as a brewing legal situation with his wife. Brutish jock Tyler cares only about his popularity at school, bringing around a new friend, Ryan (West Mulholland), who proves a welcome distraction for Chloe, who is becoming increasingly aware of the paranormal activity in the home.

“Presence” is a beautifully executed vision of a rather mediocre script. What makes it interesting is the POV “gimmick,” which Soderbergh demonstrates as a legitimate mode of cinematic storytelling. His camera movements take on such a human quality that we become emotionally connected to it as another character in the story.

It’s just the story that’s being told that’s somewhat hacky. Tyler and Chloe aren’t fully fleshed out characters, but rather teen stereotypes (jock bully brother, sad/bad girl sister) whose complex relationship isn’t well-established. Rebecca is a cipher, a “tiger mom” caricature who’s always on email or fawning over her son, her mysterious legal situation never paying off. The only character to which we can attach is the compassionate Chris, who is at his wit’s end trying to hold his family together.

Furthermore, the film builds to a bizarre twist that feels at odds with the emotional core of this film. What could have been a profoundly sorrowful observation of the private moments of a dysfunctional family cracking at the seams becomes an unnecessarily high-stakes thriller that relies on hackneyed, gendered tropes. These flourishes of sex and danger do not tonally match with the overall tenor of the film and performances.

It’s fascinating to watch Soderbergh continue to stretch himself creatively, and prove the worth of inventive and innovative modes of filmmaking. It’s just a question of whether or not the scripts are any good. Koepp is one of the most successful screenwriters of all time, and “Presence” feels like one of the screenplays from his discard pile that Soderbergh scooped up for a quickie experiment. The experiment was indeed successful, but the story itself isn’t.

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‘PRESENCE’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for violence, drug material, language, sexuality and teen drinking)

Running time: 1:25

How to watch: In limited release Jan. 17 and wide release Jan. 24

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