Though he's broken through to the mainstream moviegoer's radar since his Oscar win for Oppenheimer (and perhaps beforehand for his leading role on the much-loved Netflix series Peaky Blinders), Cillian Murphy has been making interesting acting choices for decades (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend seeking out Breakfast on Pluto). Since taking the lead in Christopher Nolan's epic, Murphy's follow-up projects have been smaller, more personal affairs, and it's wonderful to see. He starred in and produced last year's Small Things Like These, directed by Tim Mielants, a quietly devastating story of a father who must confront secrets hidden in his small Irish town's parish and convent.
Now, he re-teams with Mielants for Steve, another small, Ireland-set drama in which he stars (and also produces) as the headmaster of an all-boys boarding school facing uncertainty in the mid-1990s. Based on the 2023 novella Shy, adapted for the screen by author Max Porter, the film has a kinetic energy as it follows Steve (Murphy) and his cohort of educators and administrators over the course of a single day and night as they oversee a stable of teenage boys with raging hormones, under-developed frontal lobes and plenty of childhood trauma and behavioral issues. With timestamps throughout, we witness tensions escalating, emotions deteriorating, and the staff navigating some unexpected news about the fate of the school and their charges.
In the film adaptation, the narrative shifts from the book's focus, that of student Shy (here played by Jay Lycurgo) and his acting out, fighting with other students and, at one point outright disappearing from the educator's radar entirely. Here, as the movie's updated title would suggest, we are primarily focused on headmaster Steve's experience, and Mielants and cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert spend no small amount of time with the camera fixed squarely on Murphy's strained and stressed face. This micro-focus is supported by the film's documentary conceit, that a filmmaking crew is on site to capture life at the school and direct-to-camera confessionals from staff and students alike. What could easily turn into a gimmick is instead a worthy narrative device to send us inside the heads of Steve, his fellow educators (including Tracey Ullman as Amanda, Emily Watson as Jenny) and a small selection of the students, including Shy and Jamie (Luke Ayres), who have each surely given Steve plenty of the gray hair in his beard.
The film is at its most heartbreaking when Steve and the young men in his charge are given space to be vulnerable, something that doesn't come naturally to any of them. There are backstories here that would be a disservice to disclose, but Steve is dealing with a boulder of guilt strapped to his back, while Shy has recently received heartbreaking news from his mother that would be difficult for anyone to process, let alone a teenager left to fend for himself. Though the proceedings can be quite depressing in moments (no one's idea of a good time at the movies), what we're watching is moving because, well, life is sometimes depressing and observing others face life's challenges and find their way through (or struggle to do so) is its own kind of affirming. What Steve and his staff are faced with is nothing short of an uphill battle, and yet they still manage to find moments to connect with the boys and fight for their institution.
Murphy has a few interesting projects in the offing, including returning to the world of Tommy Shelby in a Peaky Blinders spin-off feature film and possibly Damien Chazelle's next feature as well. In the meantime, it's nice to see him take on roles that are a bit less the Hollywood leading man and more rooted in depth of character and lived experience. He's long since proven he can do both, and well.
Steve is now streaming on Netflix.
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