It’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Steve (Cillian Murphy). As the headmaster at Stanton Wood, a boarding school for troubled young men, he shows up to work and is greeted by bickering students, physical altercations, and an under-appreciated staff that needs his help. He also learns from a couple trustees that the board is shutting down Stanton Wood for good in six months. And, oh yeah, a documentary crew has already set up shop throughout the hallways and classrooms to interview kids and teachers for an exposé on this chaotic operation.
If the set-up to Steve can feel overwhelming, it’s only the beginning. Tim Mielants’ adaptation of Max Porter’s book Shy unfolds over the course of 24 hours, shadowing the entirety of Steve’s administrative and caretaking responsibilities before they eventually spiral him into abusing drugs and alcohol. Overwhelmed but undeterred, Steve is the kind of big-hearted leader who forges real connections with the kids even as they disrespect his authority and struggle to overcome their insubordinate tendencies. He knows every small breakthrough, every resolved dispute, can make a difference in their lives; he’s also running into roadblocks and out of energy to fulfill the promise of a better future. He can’t do this much longer.
Steve marks the second collaboration between the Belgian filmmaker and Oscar winner after last year’s Small Things Like These. But Murphy’s intricate, calibrated performance struggles to break through in the same way, burdened by Mielants’ jarring shifts in tone and constrained by Porter’s jittery script, which can’t commit to its protagonist without sacrificing the drama around its compelling students. The most notable of the bunch is Shy (Jay Lycurgo), who constantly blasts EDM through his headphones, specifically after his mother calls and bans him from coming home. It’s one of the movie’s only quiet, heartbreaking scenes, while the rest of his story is frustratingly absent and underdeveloped. Whether it’s because of the script’s one-day urgency or the desire to platform more of Murphy, Mielants can only tell, not show, how special and equally wounded Steve’s students really are.
In some ways, that’s the structure of Porter’s script, which uses the documentary interviews with various teachers and helpers (a very good Tracey Ullman and Emily Watson) as a way to relay important information and backstory about the school and its pupils. Mielants frames them in lo-fi digital cameras to get a documentary aesthetic that highlights each kid’s mentality. But every time Steve establishes and settles into a rhythm, it makes a frustratingly showy, stylistic choice that seems predicated on Mielants having access to a drone and killer electronic-music soundtrack. In one sequence, his camera flies and circles around the school grounds, capturing the geography between Steve, Shy, and the rest of the boys, but the choice doesn’t achieve anything dramatically––it feels more like a music video that downplays the severity of the scene’s situation. Such tonal whiplash ratchets up the energy and occasionally illuminates the headspace of certain characters, but it’s mostly just noise with little insight––provocative filmmaking that merely mimics the boys’ unbridled testosterone.
Murphy keeps Steve on the tracks. Among his great gifts is an ability to convey feelings while internally processing information. You believe he’s in charge not because of any authoritative posturing, but from the weary resignation that the school has beaten into him, his empathy that pervades among so much adversity. Like most teachers in this fertile subgenre (the underdog educator against a group of rebellious kids and uncaring higher-ups) Steve operates in a constant reactive mode, putting out fires and maintaining a sense of equilibrium just to get through the day. But he also walks the halls with a nagging sense of regret and anxiety. Is he responsible for the school’s closing? Could he have done more? Without Murphy, those emotions and questions don’t get the oxygen they deserve, nor half the intended impact of the movie’s ambiguous ending. He’s all Steve has really got.
Steve premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, opens in theaters on September 19, and hits Netflix on October 3.
The post TIFF Review: Cillian Murphy Keeps School Drama Steve on the Tracks first appeared on The Film Stage.
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