A TV news crew is granted access to Stanton Wood reform school as head teacher Steve (Cillian Murphy), deputy Amanda (Tracey Ullman) and newest recruit Shola (Simbiatu Ajikawo) work tirelessly to offer hope and support to young men who have been abandoned by society.
These troubled souls include Andy (Douggie McMeekin), Ash (Joshua Barry), Jamie (Luke Ayres), Nabz (Ahmed Ismail), Tarone (Tut Nyuot) and Shy (Jay Lycurgo), who receives bad news from his mother that tips him over the edge.
While Steve resorts to covert swigs of alcohol to carry him through a hellish day he will never forget, Shy spirals out of control, wreaking havoc in front of the TV crew after he sums himself up as “depressed, angry and bored.”
Adapted for the screen by Max Porter from his best-selling novel, Steve is a gritty drama that unfolds with bristling indignation and bruising candour inside the corridors and classrooms of a mid-1990s school threatened with closure.
Porter’s script rages against a political machine, which abandons disenfranchised young men to their self-destruction.
Director Tim Mielants and actor Murphy reunite after the affecting period drama Small Things Like These for a coruscating study of last-chance education and redemption.
The film is shot largely on handheld cameras by cinematographer Robert Heyvaert to inject the same sense of nervous energy as the emotionally volatile wards.
Lycurgo matches Murphy’s intensity in his heart-tugging scenes, culminating in a gut-wrenching cry for help that echoes unanswered into the night.
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