Netflix film “Steve”, which was released on the streaming service a few days ago after having a limited theatrical release in UK and US a few weeks ago, follows one particularly difficult day for the teachers and boys at one shabby boarding school. While the teachers try really hard to get things under control, the boys keep struggling with each own emotional issues in one way or another, and both of these groups are alternatively exasperated and frustrated all the time without making much connection between them.

The main background of the story, which is mainly set on one day of 1996, is one seriously under-funded boarding school for boys with societal and behavioral difficulties, and the movie opens with its deeply caring headteacher Steve (Cillian Murphy) beginning another busy day at the school. Right before arriving in the school, he spots one of the boys smoking a piece of marijuana, but he does not scold or punish this boy at all mainly because he sincerely understands how problematic this boy’s life has been.

Incidentally, it happens to be the day when the school is visited by a TV reporter and her crew, so Steve and his staff members are quite nervous to say the least. While they are willing to present themselves and their school and students as honestly as possible, they also care a lot about the public image of the school because, after all, the school has been supported by some private foundation as well as a bit of government funding. 

However, as this TV reporter and her crew do their job here and there inside the school, things do not go as well as Steve and his staff members hoped at first. Besides those unruly behaviors of his deeply troubled students, Steve and many of his staff members turn to have each own issues behind their weary appearances, and they cannot help but tell a lot about that when they are respectively interviewed in front of the camera.

And then things get only worse and worse for them. When Steve and a few staff members later have a meeting with the two people associated with the aforementioned private foundation, they are notified that the school will be closed after no less than six months, and this surely exasperates them a lot even though there is really nothing they can do about that. In addition, their students continue to clash with each other as usual just because they cannot help but annoy each other, and this certainly drains Steve and his staff more and more as the day goes by. 

Nevertheless, Steve and his staff members keep trying their best even though the time is running out for them as well as the students. Steve especially cares a lot about the aforementioned boy, and we get to know more about his seriously troubled status, but there is not much progress for this boy even after another session of his with a patient counselor. 

At least, the boy is not stupid at all, and we get a rather amusing moment when the school is later visited by a prominent politician who simply visits there for improving his public image a bit. When he makes some pretentious speech in front of several staff members and students as well as the camera of the TV crew, it does not take much time for everyone else to see through his bullsh*t, and you may chuckle a bit when the boy gives a very honest and straightforward respond to the politician’s speech.

After building up a considerable amount of realism on the screen during its first half, the movie unfortunately begins to falter as getting more melodramatic along with its several main characters during the second half. While his school is cornered much more than before, Steve cannot help but become more unnerved and rattled than before, and Cillian Murphy, who also participated in the production of the film as one of its co-producers, did a splendid job of conveying to us his character’s accumulating weariness and frustration. As Steve struggles more and more along the story, we come to see more of a decent man quite exhausted as always trying to do the right things for his boys, and you may be relieved to see later in the story that he has someone to lean one in his private life at least. 

However, the screenplay by Max Porter, which is based on his 2023 novella “Shy”, does not develop enough Steve and several other main characters in the story. Although director Tim Mielants, who previously collaborated with Murphy in “Small Things Like These” (2024), and cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert did a commendable job of establishing the vividly realistic atmosphere around the main characters in the film on the screen, Porter’s screenplay often stumbles in fleshing them out more along the story, and that is the main reason why several main cast members besides Murphy feel rather under-utilized in comparison. For instance, Tracey Ullman and Emily Watson are simply required to fill their respective spots around Murphy, while Jay Lycurgo manages to bring some human nuance to his rather thankless supporting role.

On the whole, “Steve” is two or three steps from what Mielants and Murphy powerfully achieved in “Small Things Like These”, an overlooked gem I wholeheartedly recommend you to check out as soon as possible. Although it did not engage me enough during my viewing, the movie has some good elements to admire at least, so I let you decide whether you will check it out or not.