Being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world. It’s stressful, the hours are relentless, and the pay is shit. So imagine being a teacher at a last-chance reform school where many of the students are openly violent and verbally abusive to not only each other but to each teacher. Tim Mielants’s, Steve, adapted from Max Porter’s Shy, is a love-letter to teachers who teach in this environment. While its heart is in the right place Steve sadly gets lost in its homework.
We follow Steve (Cillian Murphy), the headteacher at a last-chance reform school in the remote English countryside. His days are filled with teaching, verbal and physical abuse as he pops opioids to keep his sanity. Yet despite the abuse, he still deeply cares for his students. One of them is Shy (Jay Lycurgo), a bright young man who is struggling with the demons of his past. However, when news reaches that the school will be closing by the end of the semester, the entire school spirals into madness.
Before I bog down the room too much let me talk about what I like. Steve is undeniably well crafted thanks to Tim Mielants’s commanding direction. He wastes no time throwing his audience into the frenzied ecosystem of this school. Through suffocating long takes, we are held hostage in this sweaty, claustrophobic environment right alongside the students and teachers. The walls feel like they are closing in, every hallway echoes with raised voices, and since no one is capable of communicating outside of shouting, the school itself is a pressure cooker threatening to blow every five minutes. It’s stressful, it’s exhausting, and that is the point that Mielants makes sure his audience doesn’t just witness the chaos, but lives it.
On the performance side, it should be no surprise that Cillian Murphy delivers another brilliant performance. He plays this worn-down, deeply wounded teacher, with all of the layers of this teacher struggling to keep his sanity. He grounds the chaos with his weary presence. Yet, the real stand out here is from Jay Lycurgo as Shy. Lycurgo captures the painful contradictions of a student whose raw brilliance and potential are perpetually smothered by his neverending trauma. His performance is alive and filled with vulnerability and rage, making him the beating heat of this film.
However, despite all this praise, Steve can’t quite escape an identity crisis. At just 92 minutes, the film is trying to shoulder more story than its runtime can reasonably support. The biggest issue is focus as the narrative can’t decide if it belongs to Steve or to Shy, and in splitting the difference, it shortcuts both. What we’re left with is two compelling threads competing for attention, neither of which is given enough room to fully develop. That lack of breathing space ultimately robs the conclusion of its weight, leaving it feeling unearned and undercooked. It’s frustrating, because the pieces are all there. With even 30 more minutes, I’m convinced the film could have struck gold. Instead, it feels like Steve cuts itself off just when it starts to get interesting.
Ultimately, Steve has everything it needs to be a moving ode to teachers. It has strong direction, fantastic performances, and the raw emotional core. But instead of delivering a cohesive statement, the film ends up caught between two competing narratives, with neither fully coming into fruition.. What could have been a moving love letter is reduced to a muddled draft, stuck halfway between answers A and B.
My Rating: B-
Coming to theaters September 19th and to Netflix October 3rd.
Leave a Reply