Steve

A small-scale movie with big themes, based on a 1996 novel, with an unusual drum ’n’ base soundtrack, including Little Simz.

Though the movie’s basis is the novella is ‘Shy’ (Jay Lycurgo), we don’t see things from his perspective, but from Steve’s (Cillian Murphy). We’re in a crumbling listed countryside mansion, where Steve and a small team are trying last chance rehabilitation and education with some young people. At the same time, pressure is mounting as Steve has check-ins with students, an MP meet ’n’ greet, an invasive fly on the wall documentary/news feature camera crew visiting ready to capture shocks and thrills, and a funding donor meeting — all on the same day.

When Steve learns, in a throwaway comment, that funding is being pulled and the school closed in six months, he starts, like the building, to crumble.

Steve is a gentle, kind adult, with a love of music and a genuine compassion for young people. At the same time he’s hiding deep pain and grief, and physical affliction. As the pressure grows, he fights himself to stop and then to not stop dangerously self-medicating again.

Some stunning camera work, interesting colour and texture choices mimic the layout of the novella to depict something of what’s crashing out of people’s hearts and heads.

Dotted with National Treasurers — Cillian Murphy, a magnificent Little Simz, Tracey Ullman and Roger Allam, we follow Steve and the residential students and staff through one impactful, fateful day. At the same time, in the daily chaos, things aren’t right — one of the students has been sexually harassing a female member of staff and this covered up, not reported; outside doors aren’t locked at night nor is there a waking night cover; Steve has hiding places around the school and awful back pain following a life threatening car accident two years ago. Noticeably, there seem to be too few adults around to team manage the behaviours and attitudes thrown at them, which I’m sure is breaking more policies. Shy has had a gut-wrenching phone call with his Mum and can’t find the words to communicate what he’s feeling. At the same time, you really feel for his Mum, and the boundaries she feels compelled to put in place to protect herself from her own son. School policies and procedures are fuzzy — shown in Steve resisting calling the police when one of the students goes missing at night. Very little seems to be written down, for good and bad reasons. Who makes sure that the safeguarders are safe?

The end is equally shocking — not ending as you expect, leaping from grainy, earthy blue tinges into jolting zipping colours and apparent peace. Only it may not be. Like real life, we’ve eavesdropping in and out of conversations and lives, and left to ponder, to fill in the gaps, piece together the fragments. Exploring an awful lot in a short time, it’s gripping, compelling and thought-provoking, as well as beautiful and vulnerable. I wish we’d seen more from the young men’s points of view, as in the Nickel Boys. (And I’m really not sure about blackboards and chalk as a teaching resource in 1996?!!! Maybe this shows the wobbly funding underpinning the school?)

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