Director: Tim Mielants
Writer: Max Porter
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo
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.
“We’re locked into this place for better or worse, and it’s nearly always worse.” — Amanda
Tim Mielants directs Cillian Murphy once more after the heartbreaking Small Things Like These. Steve is adapted from Max Porter’s novel “Shy” about an intelligent and self-lacerating young man who is at a “last chance” reform school in England. Mielants and Porter change the novel’s primary focus from the character of Shy (Jay Lycurgo) to Steve (Murphy), the headteacher of Stanton Wood Manor. Over 24 hours, the audience is immersed in the world of over-worked and underfunded teachers trying to connect with troubled seventeen-year-old boys and keep them from falling through the cracks and ending up in prison or dead.
Steve is driving on to the school grounds in the morning and spots Shy smoking a joint and listening to drum and bass. The two have what appears to be an excellent rapport but on this day they will each be facing the forces that threaten to drive them under. It’s 1996 and on this single day Steve and his staff will be interviewed for a documentary which is a tipping point for other long-standing issues to come to a head.
Steve is on an over-night shift which worries some of his co-workers including his deputy, Amanda (Tracey Ullman), as he is not only reaching physical burn-out due to an injury sustained in a car crash, but he’s also dropping the ball in other areas of his duties. A mouthy and potentially very dangerous student named Tyrone (Tut Nyot) has been sexually harassing the new teacher, Shola (Simbi Ajikowa AKA Little Simz). According to Jenny (Emily Watson), the psychologist who visits the students every week, if it were any other school, Tyrone would be expelled with no protection. Steve and his staff, including Shola, know it isn’t any other school, but it still constitutes a failure in duty of care. Duty of care is weighty at Stanton Wood as every student is at risk and a risk to others. Steve carries around a tape recorder he uses to remind himself to “act like an adult” and makes voice notes during the day to deal with specific issues. He’s also been using tapes to help orient Shola.
The documentary crew arrives headed by Geoff (Marcus Garvey), the director and presenter Kamila (Priyanga Burford). They are interested in capturing the school as either a successful “radical intervention” or a waste of taxpayer money with each student costing around 30-thousand pounds per year. Their goal is to interview the staff and students with a set of questions: how did you get here, describe yourself in three words, describe the school, and so on. Having heard about the documentary crew, the local Tory MP Sir Hugh Montague Powell (Roger Allam) also plans a visit to the school. On top of this, there is a meeting with the trust that owns the building and the grounds. Most urgently for Shy is that on a phone call with his mother, she cuts contact off with him for his abusive mood swings. Steve has been sneaking extra pain relief in the form of liquid morphine that he’s been hiding in the laundry. Stanton Wood is a tinderbox ready to flame.
The lads at the school are not easy to deal with. Jamie (Luke Ayers) is having a physical brawl with the twitchy Riley (Joshua J. Parker). Later, Jamie will brawl with Tyrone in the kitchen while the documentary crew are there. The only way these fights stop is for a teacher to place themselves in the vicinity of violence—risking their own safety. Arguments start constantly as the teens are always on tenterhooks. It’s “a roundabout of doom” according to Steve, but on the roundabout are places and possibilities where the students might thrive. Shy, Benny (Araloyin Oshunremi), and Nabeez (Ahmed Ismail) have their drum and bass/jungle beats music they want to move to London for to start a label. Another of the students is a talented artist. Mielants and Porter never let the audience forget that the young men are impossible but also worth investing in.
Steve generally can talk down a fight or talk through an issue with warmth and humour—as Shola says in her interview, “He is proper. He’s one of the good guys. He’s authentic.” But he’s also drowning, which Amanda notices as he begins drinking on duty. Shy, who describes himself as “depressed, angry, and bored, and more barbed wire than slippy” is also in crisis as he’s losing the ability to regulate and channel his destructiveness. As the day proceeds into night, Mielants shows how close Steve and Shy are in craving some manner of oblivion which will ease them of their guilt and mental health burdens. The metaphor is overplayed in places, which causes the film to drag where it need not. However, some of the overplaying results in beautifully shot scenes.
Steve is scattered on the whole. The frenetic pace of the school is supposed to be messy and anarchic—a space where every moment is charged. Mielants’ choice to mix formats and pace such as the video used by the documentary crew or launching into slow motion don’t really add anything to the narrative. One incredible sweeping shot that encompasses the grounds and the interior of the school is breathtaking but stands out as an extraneous flourish. The style sometimes overwhelms the character work which is the essential ingredient in the film. The stark contrast between the artificial sections and the subdued and powerful interplay between characters shows up where the film trips itself up.
However, the subdued sections which do concentrate on the characters, whether or not it is a screaming match or two students finding something to bond over are meaningful and keep the film anchored to what it should be. Tracey Ullman, Emily Watson, and Simbi Ajikowa each give profound performances supporting Cillian Murphy and Jay Lycurgo’s in extremis work— which when handled without bluster are thoughtfully and precisely acted.
Tim Mielants’ deliberate lack of restraint can make the characterization too scattershot. When Mielants is exercising restraint, the emotional tone shines through, and the buried excellence is in sight. Steve had the potential to be both beautifully heartbreaking and hopeful with a more focussed execution. That Mielants misses the mark is frustrating, but it doesn’t wholly condemn the work. Steve is a good film, but it could have been a great film.
