Steve

There are few actors better able to convey true emotional turmoil than Cillian Murphy. He effortlessly inhabits characters pushed right to the brink, from his portrait of a tortured scientist in Oppenheimer to his apocalypse-survivor in 28 Days Later. It’s no surprise that he excels once again in his second collaboration with director Tim Mielants, a propulsive, rough-hewn but gut-punch-packing adaptation by screenwriter Max Porter of his own novel, Shy. This time Murphy is tasked with showing the whole spectrum of human emotion over the course of a single day. He makes short work of it, playing the titular character Steve, a warm-hearted but harried headteacher running — pretty much singlehandedly — a state-funded reform school for young men in 1990s Britain. These are boys whom society has turned its back on, who would otherwise likely wind up in young offenders’ facilities. On this particular day, Steve and Shy’s turbulent emotional trajectories mysteriously align.