Set in 1996 - and all the more devastating for being still very relevant today - and following a "clusterf**k" twenty-fours, Steve (Cillian Murphy) is the beleaguered headteacher of crumbling Stanton Wood Manor, a last-chance residential intervention centre for a handful of troubled teenage boys, including the emotionally-intelligent but lost seventeen-year-old Shy (Jay Lycurgo). Flitting between a largely kinetic fly-on-the-wall documentary style and an actual TV news crew filming an end-piece with interviews and a more detached viewpoint, the film pulls no punches in presenting its confrontational emotional raw honesty and the ever-present simmering and explosive tension. It is bleak and crushingly sad but not without its moments of genuine humour, and the well-placed use of a Chekhov's Gun leads to a heartbreaking moment of realisation on the part of the viewer of an event that is about to happen at one point. Cillian Murphy gives yet another of his incredibly immersive and impactful performances as the leader trying to carry everyone's demons as well as his own, ably backed up by Jay Lycurgo's control and range as Shy and Tracey Ullman 's poised counterpoint as Steve's deputy. Steve is not an easy watch, but it is very rewarding and impressive indeed.
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