If film and television are any indication—be it The Teacher’s Lounge and Playground or Armand and Netflix’s Adolescence—schools are now veritable battlegrounds where harried teachers, uncooperative administrators, dysfunctional kids, and intrusive parents and outsiders are at constant odds.

Add to that burgeoning subgenre Steve, the second consecutive collaboration between director Tim Mielants and star Cillian Murphy. For their follow-up to last year’s superb Small Things Like These, the duo sticks to harrowing material, immersing themselves in an institute for troubled teens that makes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s psych ward look like a kindergarten class at naptime.

A frenzied plea for compassion and a stirring tribute to the men and women who sacrifice their lives, and sanity,

See Full Page