Following its premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, Cillian Murphy’s new film, Steve, has now premiered on Netflix.

The movie, an adaptation of Max Porter’s novella Shy, which Murphy told Deadline “broke my heart,” tells the story of the titular headteacher, played by Murphy, who struggles to keep his students in line at a reform school as he battles his own mental health struggles.

“I think everyone is struggling — it’s just a spectrum of how much or how little,” Murphy told The Globe and Mail of playing emotionally complex characters like his Steve protagonist.

“I’m so bored and uninterested in human perfection. For me, when a protagonist is attempting to do the right thing but is failing or struggling to get through the day, or is contradicting themselves in a way that is weak, flawed or hypocritical — to me, that’s humanity. That’s where the truth is.”

‘Steve’ was created by Murphy and his production partner, Alan Moloney

Steve follows the titular character over the course of 24 hours as he and the students try to stop the school’s impending closure.

Troubled teenager Shy is also a focal point of Steve. He is at a crossroads, where he’s forced to confront self-destructive and violent impulses.

Porter’s novella is told from Shy’s point of view. The writer suggested the film, created by Murphy and his collaborator Alan Moloney under their new production company, Big Things Films, follow Steve instead.

“It was Max’s idea to change the perspective and flip it around to the headteacher who runs this institution,” Murphy told Deadline. “Myself and Alan and Max got on a call, and we started to turn it around in our heads and it seemed like we could make a film out of it. The same events happen, we’re just looking at them through a different lens.”

Murphy added that telling the story over one day creates an immediate “sort of an intense pressure on the characters.”

Is ‘Steve’ based on a true story?

While the narrative speaks to several universal truths, Steve and its source material are not based on real events, according to the Daily Mirror.

“It is a book about 1995, that works as a book about now, I hope,” Porter told Esquire in 2023. “I wrote it from a position of absolute horror at the political present.”

He explained that, without writing an “essay around the failing of the contemporary, Conservative government,” he wanted to explore these social issues and the consequences they inspire.

“Anybody reading this book now, who is awake, will see what the consequences of a place like Last Chance closing is,” he told Esquire. “When you close youth clubs and social support systems in inner cities, what happens when you strip the welfare state of funding? These things are obvious and terrifying. Where are we? Where are we going?”

Steve is now streaming on Netflix.

Cillian Murphy

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