Cillian Murphy delivers one of his most uninhibited performances in 'Steve', a brutal but ultimately hopeful reform school drama adapted by Max Porter from his novella 'Shy'. The film, directed by Tim Mielants, reunites the team behind 'Small Things Like These' but with a radically different tone, blending gonzo energy, death-metal chaos, and black humour.
Murphy plays Steve, a stressed and troubled headteacher with a secret alcohol and substance abuse problem, running a residential reform school for delinquent teenage boys in the mid-1990s. His staff includes Tracey Ullman as the deputy, Emily Watson as a therapist-counsellor, and Little Simz as a new teacher. Together, they struggle to maintain order amid constant fights and violence.
The boys are an intimidating mix of energy and brutal wit, engaged in permanent rap battles without the music. The quietest and smartest is Shy (Jay Lycurgo). The title change from the novella shifts emphasis, drawing teacher and pupil into closer parallel. On a terrible day, a TV news crew arrives to film a segment, coinciding with a visit from a pompous local MP (Roger Allam). Steve learns the school buildings are to be sold and the school abolished, while Shy receives a call from his mother and stepfather severing ties.
The film explores the pain of rejection from top to bottom, showing Steve's awful pathos. Over a long career of patience and tolerance, he has effectively joined the boys, becoming the most difficult resident. His substance abuse is an open secret, and when told the school is finished, he erupts in rage, threatening to strangle the trust chair – a macabre imitation of the outbursts they try to curb in the boys.
The news crew conducts on-camera interviews, including a traumatised Steve, whose contribution opens the film. The boys seem energised by celebrity; one advises his younger self to 'always carry a blade'. The film ends with a sequence of hope and redemption, featuring an emotional voiceover from Steve about the boys, though it perhaps softens the ferocity slightly. Murphy and Lycurgo lead an outstanding cast.
