Steve review: Cillian Murphy leads darkly funny drama about education and redemption

Cillian Murphy stars as a frazzled headteacher in Steve, a tense drama blending dark humour with raw realism and fragile hope

Cillian Murphy as Steve. Picture: Robert Viglasky/Neflix.

★★★★★

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Or so the old saying goes. 

Steve (15A) begs to differ: teaching is doing for Steve (Cillian Murphy), the headteacher at Stanton Wood, an experimental school that represents either “educational intervention” or “a waiting room for Borstal,” depending on how you view giving young offenders a last chance to turn their lives around.

With resources pared to the bone, Steve, his assistant head Amanda (Tracey Ullman) and counsellor Jenny (Emily Watson) oversee chaotic outbursts of violence. 

Matters worsen when a team of filmmakers arrives to document how students including Shy (Jay Lycurgo), Jamie (Luke Ayers), Benny (Araloyin Oshunremi) and Riley (Joshua J Parker) are faring in the pioneering programme.

Told over the course of an incredibly fraught day, Tim Mielants’ film, adapted by Max Porter from his novel, shows Steve redefining multitasking: teacher, administrator, counsellor to students and staff, while also battling his own demons.

Mielants brings a manic, dishevelled quality to the storytelling that mirrors Steve’s frantic thought processes as he firefights through the day, a style enhanced by cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert’s unusual angles that highlight Steve’s off-kilter approach.

Cillian Murphy, who seems to invest himself more deeply in every role, is in stellar form, playing Steve as an El Greco-like saint fizzing on ill-judged self-medication and self-flagellation. 

Meanwhile, Tracey Ullman and Emily Watson provide strong support, as does Jay Lycurgo as the psychologically distraught Shy, who embodies, for Steve, everything Stanton Wood represents.

Unsentimental and bracingly realistic, but not without glimmers of hope, Steve is a gripping drama infused with mordant humour. 

Steve is in cinemas from September 19.