Steve, 2025.
Directed by Tim Mielants.
Starring Cillian Murphy, Jay Lycurgo, Tracey Ullman, Emily Watson, Little Simz, Youssef Kerkour, Marcus Garvey, Douggie McMeekin, Charlie Beaven, Roger Allam, Luke Ayres, Joshua J. Parker and Tut Nyuot.
SYNOPSIS:
Follows headteacher Steve battling for his reform college’s survival while managing his mental health. Concurrently, troubled student Shy navigates his violent tendencies and fragility, torn between his past and future prospects.
It is a surprise realizing that Steve is a swift second collaboration between star Cillian Murphy and director Tim Mielants, partially because while it is concerned with doing what’s right and helping out troubled and abused youth, as in last year’s Small Things Like These, this work could not be any more different in tone and execution. Whereas their first film together was a quiet tale told through nuance, this (with a screenplay from Max Porter) is a loud experience where something chaotic is happening at any minute in any room of the 1996-set problem child reform college, where the titular Steve (Cillian Murphy) passionately serves as headteacher.
As for the school, there are three perceptions of it: it’s a place for last chances, trash, or an institution that is genuinely productive at turning young men’s lives around. Working with Steve, the faculty is comprised of workers equally dedicated to this cause, even if they receive less focus. That’s because Steve, who is constantly doing his best to discourage the youth from getting easily worked up and baited into physical confrontations, is dealing with personal demons and is juxtaposed as someone who could stand to take some of his own advice.
Steve’s anxieties and problems are amplified as efforts to demonstrate the value of the school through a documentary crew filming a standard day (as such, the cinematography from Robrecht Heyvaert is of the shaky cam mockumentary style) as part of a plan to save the school and earn more funding potentially, goes sideways upon learning that the school has already been sold and that everyone is expected to be out by December, which is, as everyone knows, the middle of the school year.
However, calling the film Steve is almost a deceptive tactic, considering a heavy portion tracks each of the students, whether it be the hectic drama they find themselves embroiled in, the trouble they cause (which is sometimes physical and, unfortunately, falls under sexual harassment), or reflective interviews conducted by the documentary crew often asking questions such as “what would you have told yourself six years ago?”. These young men generally come from broken homes or are working through some form of trauma, with each of them occasionally endearing and surrounded by a support system repeatedly assuring the crew that they are not hopeless and that they can be intelligent and thoughtful when they choose to apply themselves. It’s rare when that happens, but there is something beautiful, if clichéd, that Steve and the faculty refused to give up on a single one of them, even when every waking moment here comes across as a catastrophic nightmare that might never end.
For as lived-in as this feels, it also must be stated that the mockumentary creative choice isn’t necessarily doing this narrative any favors. Steve often comes across as a ticking clock film for no solidly justifiable reason. This is made more confounding when the third act suddenly shifts gears into a more traditional narrative, zeroing in on the tumultuous friendship and conflict between Steve and one particular student, Shy (Jay Lycurgo), who is a match that gets in the teacher’s head and inadvertently pushes him to reckon with his past. There are revelations in that past that are both familiar and yet come out of nowhere, so suddenly with little time left for the film to properly emotionally deal with any of it. Even the mockumentary angle is mostly dropped, leaving the last third feeling like an entirely different movie.
That’s not to doubt the sincerity of anyone behind or in front of the camera on Steve, but it is clunky in execution. It either needs to stick to its title and focus on Steve or the youth; the film tries to do both, ending up cutting everyone short.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
