WARNING: contains spoilers
Eve Macdonald
Steve (2025) is a film about collapse — that of personal, institutional and generational collapse.
Anchored by Cillian Murphy’s vulnerable performance as the eponymous headteacher — a tormented, pill-popping workaholic who teaches Geography at a correctional school for troubled young boys — the film adapts Max Porter’s acclaimed 2023 novella Shy, an interior stream-of-consciousness story that traces the fragile mentality of a troubled teen named Shy, as he navigates tempestuous waves of depression and anger.
The movie transforms the interior work of Shy into a blistering, real-time drama. Set over the course of a singular day, Steve fights to stay afloat in a demanding workplace. A documentary crew films an invasive segment amidst the day-to-day chaos of fights, therapy sessions and plights of both the angsty kids and underpaid staff. When Steve receives the news that the school will be closed within six months, his worst nightmares become reality.
“Steve examines not just individual suffering, but systemic rot.”
At its core, Steve is a raw portrait of burnout, spotlighting the undervalued role of teachers in shaping the trajectory of young people’s lives.
Broken Masculinity
Depression, toxic masculinity and brotherhood are all themes integral to the fabric of Steve. The quiet yet volatile pupil Shy mirrors Steve’s own unspoken pain, reflecting how both characters embody a generational cycle of suffering that links father figures and sons, teachers and students, addicts and enablers.
Abandoned by his guardians and disillusioned by authority, Shy oscillates between moments of introspection and outbursts of rage until, over the course of the film’s tightly compressed 24 hours, his festering depression finally erupts with devastating consequences.
“The image itself screams about the quiet yet unbearable weight faced by people of whom society has already given up on.”
Whilst the novella hinges on Shy’s narrative voice, the film places Steve at the epicentre. The shift goes beyond cosmetics, instead, entirely reframing the moral centre of the story. Steve asks “What happens to the adults tasked with saving children society has already given up on?” and interrogates the systems surrounding Shy, rather than simply telling his story in isolation, as an individual piece of the puzzle.
Cillian Murphy has spoken about how Steve “got under his skin.” Instead of building the character through heavy preparation, he chose to show up each day open and exposed, reacting to whatever the scene demanded. The approach mirrors Steve himself as a man barely holding it together, living moment to moment, with no emotional safety net.
“Visually, the film’s handheld, shaky, close-up shots visually reflect its subject’s instability as Steve’s mental state slowly deteriorates throughout the day.”
Murphy’s parents were both teachers, a quiet personal resonance that bleeds into his performance. You get the sense that the actor deeply understands the ‘invisible’ labour teachers endure day in and day out, depicting the spectrum of patience and guilt symptomatic of the emotional burden the often undervalued profession entails.
A System Entrenched In Injustice
Steve examines not just individual suffering, but systemic rot. The school, a microcosm of societal neglect, is on its last legs. Truly failed by the system and already weathering slashed budgets. Teachers are scapegoated for failures far beyond their control, expected to perform miracles within a crumbling institution.
Steve has the weight of the school on his shoulders. He is blamed for for his students’ wellbeing, for the school’s reputation, and for his own disintegrating sense of purpose. His reliance on medication blurs the line between coping and self-destruction, reflecting the ouroboros of addiction. Whilst the boys attempt to conceal their pain with hedonism, Steve barely gets through the day without a cocktail of drugs himself.
Angles
Visually, the film’s handheld, shaky, close-up shots visually reflect its subject’s instability as Steve’s mental state slowly deteriorates throughout the day. The presence of the documentary crew adds another meta layer, exposing the voyeurism of systems that claim to “help”, while actually perpetuating harm.
One of the film’s most haunting sequences sees Steve asleep in front of a window. In its reflection, we glimpse Shy walking toward a lake, a bag of rocks strapped to his back. The image itself screams about the quiet yet unbearable weight faced by people of whom society has already given up on.
A Must-See
Though chaotic and often bleak, moments of raw tenderness offer oasis that make this film a must-see.
It’s a painful, deeply empathetic examination of purpose, neglect and redemption. Few films capture the complexity and messiness of the human experience such as shown in Steve.
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Featured image courtesy of elizabethaferry on Pixabay. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.
