Cillian Murphy plays a reform school teacher in upcoming Netflix drama 'Steve'

Stories about teachers and troubled youth make for great films, provided they are done by the right directors. Fortunately, an upcoming film headlined by Cillian Murphy holds much promise considering it's a reunion between a director who previously made an exceptional human drama with the actor. The film is Steve, helmed by Tim Mielants, who directed Murphy in Small Things Like These.

In the reunion, Murphy plays the head teacher of a reform school housing troubled children. Based on Max Porter's novella Shy, the film is said to be a reimagining of a story that tracks the emotional journeys of Murphy's character Steve and one of his students Shy (Jay Lycurgo). These stories are told parallely, with Porter involved in the scripting himself.

The official synopsis is as follows: "Set in the mid-’90s, Steve is a reimagining of Max Porter's Sunday Times bestseller Shy. The film follows a pivotal day in the life of head teacher Steve (Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy) and his students at a last-chance reform school amid a world that has forsaken them. As Steve fights to protect the school’s integrity and prevent its impending closure, he grapples with his own mental health. In parallel to Steve’s struggles, we meet Shy (Jay Lycurgo), a troubled teen caught between his past and what lies ahead as he tries to reconcile his inner fragility with his impulse for self-destruction and violence."

Aside from Murphy and Lycurgo, the film also features Tracey Ullman, Simbi Ajikawo, Emily Watson (also in "Small Things Like These"), with music by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow. Produced by  Alan Moloney, Cillian Murphy, and Tina Pawlik, the film will be released in select theatres in September, followed by a global premiere on Netflix on October 3. 

 

Murphy, familiar to many through Peaky Blinders and Batman Begins, won the Best Actor Academy Award for Oppenheimer in 2024. He followed it up with a small, intimate drama in the form of Small Things Like These, in which he played a coal merchant tormented by a past trauma, who stumbles upon some disquieting events in his neighbourhood. It was based on Claire Keegan's book of the same name.

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