Sometimes you come across a film with such a weird disconnect between the synopsis of the film, the actual film in question. Sometimes you’ll come across a film with a weird disconnect between the overarching story and the smaller, scene-to-scene story beats. Presence, directed by Christian Schultz, operating off a script he co-wrote with Peter Ambrosio, operates in a weird disconnect between the overarching story and the smaller, scene-to-scene story beats. The result is a film with intriguing moments that is beautifully directed and shot but is confounding in a lot of the smaller, yet incredibly important, details.

Presence begins with an opening shot in Louisiana of a woman named Jennifer (Jenna Lyng Adams) getting ready while the opening monologue of War of the Worlds, with its ominous discussion of humanity being watched by outside forces. It then immediately zooms back to New York, three weeks earlier, to a scene in which Jennifer is handed an ornate necklace by Samantha (Alexandria DeBerry), who tells her it’s a good idea for Jennifer to go home.

She’s had a bad year, her mental health is in disarray and she needs to get a handle on herself. After this brief bit of dialogue, we’re unceremoniously dumped back in the now in Louisiana and Jennifer lives in a house by herself that’s surprisingly fully furnished, as if she’s been living there longer than three weeks. Samantha hasn’t returned a single one of her messages in three weeks, a dark and mysterious shadow with two glinting eyes appears behind her and an ex named Keaton (Octavio Pisano) barges into the house.

It’s not clear whether this opening is purposefully discombobulating or if the execution is lacking, but the result is a mishmash of story ideas stuffed together that doesn’t quite work. As the film continues, it’s obvious what these scenes are trying to do but the way it's structured and put together just doesn’t work. Eventually, Samantha calls her and just talks over the fact she’s been incommunicado for three weeks and their relationship is slightly more defined. They apparently are business partners and Samantha has found a young, hot entrepreneur named David (Dave Davis) to fund their thing.

What thing, you might ask? It’s not completely explained, but it has something to do with zippers and buttons and patents? David owns a manufacturing company that makes said buttons and zippers and he’s somehow going to use her patent to make them millions of dollars? Regardless, when they end up on David’s yacht on the way to Puerto Rico, Jennifer begins acting strangely and Bad Things happen.

Presence doesn’t begin on the strongest note, with characters that don’t feel like real people and contrivances that are just waved away. Most of the film operates in an uneasy place of stunning photography and a script that could have used a bit more fine tuning. It’s obvious, once the film enters the third act, what the filmmakers were interested in exploring. But the journey to those revelations is rocky and somewhat boring. And while the ending has novel moments, it was a little too late for this reviewer.