Steve review: Cillian Murphy leads a stirring reform school drama

Steve may not be the movie you’d expect, as it certainly wasn’t what I anticipated.

An exciting element of film festivals is seeing movies before the barrage of trailers, talk show appearances, character posters, and all other manner of spoiler-y promotions. So, for a critic planning their screening schedule, you’re piecing together few clues.

Not familiar with the best-selling novella on which Steve is based, I expected a tearjerking drama that may well leave me rattled and heart-aching, like RaMell Ross’ soul-scorching Nickel Boys. After all, Steve is not only a drama set a reform school, but also a film starring Murphy, who has played a long line of intense characters facing horrid circumstances, from zombies (26 Days Later), to a dying sun (Sunshine), to a world at war (Oppenheimer). Plus, Murphy and Mielants’ last movie together was Small Things like These, a harrowing tale of the sins committed and covered up by an Irish convent. 

For all of these reasons, I braced for violence, trauma, and abuse. But while there are dark moments in Steve, it’s chiefly an energetic and even at times joyful film about hope and community.

Novelist Max Porter adapted his novella Shy into the screenplay for Steve, which offers complicated portraits of the troubled youth in a reform school, and the grown-ups assigned to their care. The resulting film is an emotional roller coaster and a call to action, demanding its audience rethink their views of such schools and those within them. 

Steve is set over one, very bad day at work. 

Students gather around Steve in “Steve.”
Credit: Robert Viglasky / Neflix

A propulsive energy drives Steve forward, from a mellow opening scene where the titular lead teacher is dictating notes into a recorder, mapping out his strategy to help each of the boys in his care. Then, Steve (Murphy) is driving into a rural area on a long, winding dirt road, when he sees a teen boy, smoking and dancing with headphones on in a field. Here, Porter’s script introduces us to Shy (Jay Lycurgo), a mercurial young man capable of joy, anger, depression, and compassion. In this moment, he is giddy, playing with Steve and gossiping about the news crew set to arrive on campus this very day. 

By setting the film over the course of this day, Porter smartly condenses the action to make every choice feel urgent. By introducing a camera crew to the mix, he adds additional conflict and stress for Steve and his team to put forth a good face to a public all too willing to misunderstand their spirited students. So, Steve’s battered vehicle pulls up to the school, a hundred-year old estate called Stanton Wood that’s steadily falling into disrepair. A smartly chosen location begins to tell the story even before a newscaster’s scripted introduction confirms it. 

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This grand building once had money flowing to it for upkeep of the place itself and its students. But as giving a second chance to impoverished young men with a criminal record became politically unfashionable, funding has dried up. Stanton Wood now operates with a skeleton crew, caring for one class of very rowdy boys who are all too willing to act up in front of the cameras. 

Steve must not only manage his staff, counsel the boys fired up by the arrival of an audience, and keep an eye on the nosy news crew (who is too eager to invade the boys’ privacy for good B-roll), but also fawn over a visiting politician in hopes of securing some more funding. He’s being pulled in every direction, and yet the film is more of an ensemble than the title might suggest. 

Steve delivers a walloping group performance. 

Jay Lycurgo as Shy and Simbi Ajikawo as Shola in “Steve.”
Credit: Robert Viglasky / Neflix

Murphy is the eye of the storm of Steve, exuding an intense focus whether talking to students or venting with his colleagues. His sharp blue eyes ache with the awareness of his responsibilities and the powerlessness an apathetic government gives teachers like him in place of support. 

His frustrations are echoed by fellow educators, like his second in command, the outspoken Amanda (Tracey Ullman in a rare dramatic turn), a very patient therapist called Jenny (Emily Watson), and new teacher Shola (Simbi Ajikawo, aka rapper Little Simz). Each of these women brings a different energy to Stanton Wood. Amanda, vibrant and frank, has a grandmotherly tough-love approach, telling the camera crew about how each of these boys is complex and that she “fucking loves” them for it. Jenny has a cool facade, but once the boys leave — sometimes after vandalizing her wood-paneled office — she shrinks into a pose of radiating disappointment. Shola, as the youngest and the only Black woman working there, faces the additional challenge of receiving unwanted sexual attention from some of the boys, and having to preserve a professional front even in such uncomfortable and unfair predicaments. While each of these roles is slimly written, they’re given proper depth from these sensational actresses. 

Then there’s the boys: Shy (a mesmerizing Lycurgo), Riley (a chaotic Joshua J. Parker), Jamie (a brash Luke Ayres), Ash (Joshua Barry), and Tyrone (Tut Nyuot), to name a few. In a clever device by Porter, the youths are introduced in interviews with the news crew, who asks their names, and three words they’d use to describe themselves. Among the batch are braggarts, button-pushers, aspiring moguls, and heartsick lost boys. The sharp contrast between one interview and the next not only sets up the dynamic between this group, but also suggests the highs and lows that each of them are experiencing in the challenge of growing up and succeeding in reform school. 

The staff here doesn’t beat or abuse them. In a number of scenes, Steve carefully approaches heart-to-hearts with a mix of psychological tools and frank slang. (“This is the thing, you can’t just casually call me a dick,” he patiently explains to one student.) It’s clear the boys are given patience, understanding, and second chances. But still, there are explosions, because within these boys is both brilliance and pain, kindness and rage. It’s a constant dance that erupts into fights, shouting, impromptu soccer matches, and a suicide attempt.

Steve grapples with teen suicide.

Tracey Ullman as Amanda and Cillian Murphy as Steve in “Steve.”
Credit: Robert Viglasky / Neflix

Not so much a spoiler as a warning, Steve involves one student’s suicidal ideation playing out into a prolonged and painful sequence. His eyes are wide and scared as he considers his next move. Sitting at the center of the theater, I was looking directly into his eyes, and the boy seemed to look directly into mine. He didn’t cry, but I did. I wept, worried for him as my thoughts wandered to those in my own life who’ve had such moments. In reflection, I’m awed that Steve doesn’t make a spectacle of a suicide attempt, but instead dwells on the decision, not the act. 

Making this sequence even more impactful is the film’s cinematography. Much of the movie’s sequences are shot in handheld, allowing for a fluid, even frantic movement as cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert chases the boys as they barrel down hallways, throw punches against steel lockers, bound over countertops, and race through a soccer pitch. But in this moment, quiet and dark, a boy alone with his thoughts and this big choice, the camera is still and unblinking. Through this simple framing, head-on and unmoving, we are with him, waiting for his decision and feeling powerless (like Steve, who is in a frenzied search for the boy), as we can’t make it for him. 

That brings us back to Steve. The film named for him might seem preachy or sentimental to some. But Porter’s earnest script and Mielants’ kinetic approach urges audiences to look beyond the outraged op-eds about tax dollars being wasted on bad eggs (a sentiment spoken directly by the cynical news crew). With each young actor throwing himself full-bodied and furious into the roles of these students, a tableaux is painted of a moment in time, where they full of life, trouble, and possibility. Then, beyond that, Steve looks to the people who are underpaid and underappreciated as they do the work to make such youth feel truly heard, respected, and loved. They aren’t saints anymore than their charges are devils. 

Steve talks with a Stanton Wood student in “Steve.”
Credit: Robert Viglasky / Neflix

In this mindful and dynamic portrait, Steve presents a message deeply humane, that all of these folks, from the students to the teachers to the news crew and even the smug politician looking for a good photo op are just people — people helping people. It might seem an obscenely simple message. Yet, as the film’s climax makes clear, it’s one worth repeating, even if it seems cringe or simplistic. “Why do you fucking give a shit?” one boy challenges the Stanton Wood staff. And the answer to that is not simple, but it is powerful. 

Steve was reviewed out of its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie will open in select theaters on Sept. 19, before debuting on Netflix Oct. 3.

If you’re feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text “START” to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don’t like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat. Here is a list of international resources