Though there has been some stiff competition – the un-googleable The End, the unbearably twee Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Thunderbolts being changed to the insta-spoiler New Avengers – I feel safe in saying that the prize for the worst title of a 2025 film can go to Steve, one of the least evocative names ever put to a poster. Thankfully, though, this nomenclatorial misstep really is the only major mistake made by the second Tim Mielants-Cillian Murphy collaboration in as many years. Following up their quietly devastating (or devastatingly quiet) Small Things Like These, Steve ups the energy considerably for a frenetic, funny, and deeply moving drama of a teacher on the brink.
Adapting Max Porter’s novella Shy (with Porter himself on scripting duties), Steve earns its title change by drastically shifting its focus. While the book centred on its titular Shy (Jay Lycurgo), a 17-year-old boy at a last-chance reform school in 1996 England, with headteacher Steve (Murphy) flitting at the periphery, the film flips their narrative importance, following Steve across a single, brutal 24-hour period. There’s a camera crew coming to film a documentary, the odious posho local MP (a fun cameo for Roger Allam) has planned a visit, and all the usual chaos of the boys is just getting amped up by the excitement, not to mention some devastating news from home for Shy.
Mielants and Porter pile on the stress very effectively – where Small Things Like These constantly reflected its characters’ quietude and interiority, the cast of Steve are endlessly loud, and the filmmaking follows suit, all hyper-mobile camerawork and overwhelming walls of sound. You’re right in Steve’s head, and Murphy is, of course, fantastic at anchoring it all as a man barely holding it all together, just about hiding a roiling chaos inside himself that is almost as disruptive as the destructive and dangerous, yet often also whip-smart, boys he’s in charge of.
This young cast is great, all charming and charismatic and funny but with just enough harsh edge to remind you that there’s a reason they’ve been shipped off to an isolated boarding school with no ‘normal’ students to terrorise. Their interactions with Steve are a highlight, often surprisingly sweet – even with his pills and drink problem, Steve is a great teacher, successfully walking the line between friend and authority figure and earning the affection and respect of terminally difficult students. Tracey Ullman also impresses in a rare dramatic role as Steve’s straight-talking right-hand woman, though Emily Watson is rather wasted as school psychiatrist Jenny in a subplot with way too little impact.
With its 1996 setting, a year before New Labour would come in and actually put money into social programs, Steve takes us back to a different era of ‘Broken Britain’ that, ‘90s cassette players aside, feels bitingly familiar right now in a moment in which it feels the nation can’t wait to give up on its youth. Angry but hopeful, Mielants, Porter, and Murphy make a tremendous case for the power of teachers who really care – even when they’re underfunded, overworked, and openly mocked by wider society – to change not the whole world, but the worlds of kids who need more than just a second chance.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 