The writer Christopher Isherwood put it this way, in his novel “Goodbye to Berlin”: “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.”

The not-thinking part may not apply, since the technique is so thoughtfully deployed, but two films released in early 2025 build on this notion of observational perspective. “Nickel Boys,” already reviewed and, I think, the peak American achievement of the previous year, tells its story from the gracefully unforced forced perspectives of two teenage boys, the camera capturing what we see through one set of eyes, then the other. Other films have tried variations on this approach, rarely with results so true and beautiful.

“Presence,” a ghost story from director Steven Soderbergh, cuts it down to a single perspective. We, the viewers, are the camera, and the camera is the unseen spectral being that’s haunting an ordinary house newly purchased by a troubled family of four. This is the setup for screenwriter David Koepp’s paradox: a confined yet highly mobile scenario, 85 minutes long.

The first roving shot glides up, down and around the new house, which is an old house — a century-old charmer, with fine wood trim and an excellent flow for a director/cinematographer (Soderbergh, who also edited) filming with lightweight, wide-lens cameras. The new family, the Paynes, settle on their offer with the agent in near-record time. Rebekah, played by Lucy Liu, wants the house for the public school in its district for the benefit of her clearly favored child, high schooler Tyler (Eddy Maday). Tyler’s sister, Chloe, is locked inside a shell of grief. In overheard bits and pieces, her parents — Chris Sullivan of “This is Us” plays her conflict-avoidant but empathetic father — and her dead-eyed brother refer to Chloe’s recently deceased best friend, victim of an apparent drug overdose.

Chloe is the melancholy heart of the story, and Callina Liang delineates her conflicted, messed-up feelings about her mean streak of a sibling, her plainly mismatched parents and the realization that someone or something lurking in the new home has taken an interest. In any movie, if a character looks directly into the camera, you notice. Here, when Liang does it, it’s Chloe’s quick and necessary establishing shot — not the usual panoramic establishing shot of a new locale, but a rule of visual engagement, acknowledged. We’re the spirit; Chloe sees us, even if she can’t quite.

The ghost’s purpose in “Presence” remains ambiguous for a while. There are wry moments when, like the invisible rabbit in “Harvey,” the title character makes itself known, at one point air-lifting Chloe’s textbooks from bed to desk when she’s out of the room. With the introduction of a crucial character from outside the family, Tyler’s newfound high school buddy Ryan (West Mulholland), the story knots things tighter, as Chloe develops her own, furtive relationship with this boy of uncertain motives.

Koepp’s a craftsman, working every side of every street in and out of Hollywood, from massive franchises to his three projects with Soderbergh. (“Black Bag” opens later this year.) I loved their previous collaboration, “Kimi”; if “Presence” falls a little short of that one, it’s because Koepp and Soderbergh are pretty casual about a couple of plot points, Rebekah's legal and financial dilemmas for one. Conversely, the climactic turn probably didn’t need a big hunk of monologue spelling everything out; what we see is plenty.

And even with its flaws, “Presence” is plenty, too. It pays attention to matters of depression and grief, and how some parents look the other way when their kids’ words or behavior cry out for the opposite. The movie operates with a nicely unpredictable rhythm, both short and longer shots ending abruptly, sometimes comically, popping us into the next one. The spirit guiding what we experience in “Presence” may not intervene in its chosen family’s affairs in consistent ways. But to that well-worn reservation, its makers would likely respond with a simple reminder: Some rules of engagement were made to be broken.

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'PRESENCE'

3 stars (out of 4)

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

Running time: 1:25

How to watch: In theaters Jan. 24

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