First Person Audio description is so interesting. I loved how Nickel Boys navigated the complexities of the perspective being one of the characters in the film, with other characters interacting with you. Presence, directed by Steven Soderbergh, feels like a departure from his typical fare, and also serves as further exploration of first person audio description. Universal Studios, the theme park element, was built on the idea that you can “ride the movies”. Now, with the right VR headset and a good first person movie, you can live the movies. In Presence, you wouldn’t exactly be alive.

What makes Presence so different from Nickel Boys is the lack of interaction. Soderbergh has chosen the first person perspective to come from that of a ghost haunting a home. So, you don’t have the conversations with other characters. You aren’t even really a character, as none of the humans know how to interact with you, so they can’t truly acknowledge you. Yet, Liz Gutman has written an exceptional audio description track that captures their movements, and has you floating from person to person, as they look right through you.

The problem isn’t the description, it is Soderbergh’s lackluster execution. He’s more interested in checking the gimmick off his director’s bucket list, like how he did an entire film on an iPhone. the actors, led by Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan, give decent performances, but Presence isn’t really a horror film. It isn’t scary either. it is an exploration of grief, voyeurism, and belief. The ending really comes seemingly out of nowhere, and honestly didn’t work for me on any level. Soderbergh also has transitions that cause the ghost (you) to just randomly fade to black with no explanation. The problem with making the camera the person is that the transitions need to make sense. Nickel Boys basically just cut. Here, the fades feel odd. Why am I closing my eyes? What is happening?

I still prefer a director who takes a swing, making an interesting 90 minutes over derivative stuff that drivels out of streaming services nowadays. And, this film earns a brownie point from the blind critic, because the audio description transitioned this from an average film to an actual experience. I would recommend this, as an experience. We don’t get a lot of first person narration, so I think people might enjoy Liz’s terrific script, done through International Digital Center. One of the rare times where a movie on the line ends up being pulled to safety by amazing accessibility.

fresh: Final Grade: C+, Audio description: A