Cast: Cillian Murphy, Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, Simbi Ajikawo and Emily Watson
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director: Tim Mielants
In Irish Cinemas: 19th September 2025
Streaming on Netflix: 5th October 2025
Cillian Murphy Breaks the Mould with Netflix’s Most Daring Drama Yet
Cillian Murphy, teaming once more with Small Things Like These director Tim Mielants, strips away every trace of glamour in Steve — a harrowing, emotionally charged portrait of a teacher barely holding it together inside a collapsing reform school. Surrounded by a cast of raw, unpolished newcomers, Murphy delivers one of his most vulnerable and unsettling performances to date.
At Stanton Wood, dysfunction isn’t the exception — it’s the curriculum. This failing institution, overseen by Murphy’s weary headmaster Steve, serves as the last stop for boys labelled too unstable for mainstream education. Adapted from Max Porter’s haunting novella Shy, the story exposes a system that throws troubled youth into the hands of underfunded teachers and therapists, clinging to the desperate hope that they might redirect violence into survival.
While the film’s artistry feels tailor-made for Venice or Telluride, Steve instead slipped quietly into the Toronto International Film Festival lineup, competing for attention among hundreds of premieres. That modest unveiling mirrors the uphill battle it faces on Netflix — a platform that can bury even its strongest films. Yet make no mistake: Steve stands among the streamer’s very best, opening in cinema on September 19 before heading online on October 3.
The film shares the bracing authenticity of FX’s The Bear and the documentary-style immediacy of Netflix’s Adolescence. It also reunites Murphy with Emily Watson and Belgian filmmaker Mielants, their previous collaboration being the devastating drama about the Magdalene Laundries, Small Things Like These. Here, Murphy himself pushed for the adaptation, persuading Porter to reimagine his fragmented interior monologue into a narrative centred not on the student Shy, but on Steve—the headmaster staggering under the weight of responsibility in 1996, as budget cuts threaten to shut Stanton Wood down for good.
Alongside Watson’s empathetic psychiatrist Jenny and Tracey Ullman’s tough-as-nails Amanda, Steve is tasked with keeping chaos at bay: corralling volatile boys, containing outbursts, and clinging to the fragile hope of progress. The story unfolds across a single fraught day, intensified by the arrival of a documentary crew. Their cameras amplify both the volatility and tenderness of the environment, catching moments of shocking brutality alongside fleeting glimpses of humanity.
Jay Lycurgo makes a striking impression as Shy, a boy oscillating between menace and fragility. In one of the film’s most unnerving sequences, the crew uncovers his hidden stash of stones, filmed with mounting dread, much like a horror scene. Shy’s unravelling exposes Steve’s own blind spots — the very ones Jenny has long warned him about.
Mielants ensures the film never feels trapped within its setting, weaving together vérité documentary footage, intimate handheld observation, and polished cinematic sequences. Cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert blends grainy Betacam textures with lush 35mm imagery, while editor Danielle Palmer balances eruptions of violence with painful silences. A standout moment arrives when Roger Allam’s smug politician is brutally undercut by the boys, showcasing both their biting wit and simmering fury.
While the spectre of suicide — a well-trodden element of school dramas — hangs heavy, Steve avoids easy tropes by shifting its emotional centre. Shy may embody the novel’s original focus, but it is Steve who becomes the film’s tragic anchor. He sneaks drinks, numbed by guilt and addiction, but refuses to stop fighting for students society has already abandoned.
For many, Murphy’s towering performance in Oppenheimer represented a career peak. Yet his collaborations with Mielants reveal another side: a willingness to immerse himself in modest, unglamorous projects that cut closer to the bone. Steve isn’t about spectacle or stardom. It’s about one man’s impossible effort to save others — and himself. Murphy, with his quiet intensity and unrelenting humanity, makes that struggle unforgettable.
Overall: 7/10
Movie Reviewer
