Steve Ending Explained: The Move That Seals Shy’s Fate

Netflix just dropped a small, sharp gut-punch called Steve. It unfolds over one very bad day and keeps finding ways to make that day worse. If you want to go in clean, stop reading now. Spoilers ahead.

The quick version

• Title: Steve (2025)
• Director: Tim Mielants
• Cast: Cillian Murphy, Tracey Ullman, Jay Lycurgo, Simbi Ajikawo, Emily Watson
• Runtime: 1h 32m
• Rotten Tomatoes (so far): 77%
• Where to watch: Streaming on Netflix in the US

One day, one school, too many cameras

Cillian Murphy plays Steve, the headteacher of Stanton Woods, a reform school for kids who got bounced by every other system and somehow landed here. The movie sticks to a single day that begins with regular school chaos and then invites in some very specific trouble: a documentary crew shows up to poke at a hot-button question — should private institutions like this still get public funding? It is, to be blunt, inside baseball about education money, and it puts everyone on edge.

Then the real hit: Steve learns Stanton Woods has been sold and will be shut down in six months. The place he calls a safe haven for misfit teens — gone on a clock. And the guy who has been holding everyone else together? Not as together as he looks.

Why Steve relapses

Steve presents as the steady adult in the room: firm, patient, deeply into the whole second-chances thing. That’s why he works here. But he’s also a man with old scars and unfinished grief. Years back, there was a horrific accident where a young girl died. He wasn’t directly at fault, but he was injured and put on oxycodone. The pills did what pills do — eased the physical pain, and then quietly became a shortcut around everything he couldn’t face.

He never truly worked through that trauma; he just kept moving. So when he hears the school is closing, the floor drops out. Purpose evaporates. The kids lose a home. He loses the thing that makes sense of his life. He slides back into pills and alcohol. His wife, Amanda, and the school therapist, Jenna, clock the change fast — jittery, scattered, not present. The heartbreaking part is that he’s still trying to save everyone else while sinking himself. His addiction here isn’t only chemical; it’s guilt, grief, and the terror of failing the people who need him.

Shy: the mirror

Enter Shy, a student Steve connects with immediately. First time we see him, he’s alone in a field, lost in his music, high, trying to hold it together. It’s not subtle: he and Steve are on parallel tracks, both nursing pain in private.

Shy’s history is not pretty. He has already hurt his stepdad and another boy and knows exactly how far he went. At Stanton Woods, he actually starts doing the work: sessions with Jenna, leaning on music, collecting stones, breathing through the storms. It’s halting, but it’s progress. Then he gets a call from his mom. She and her husband are cutting him off completely. For Shy, that’s the unimaginable line. Parents aren’t supposed to stop loving you. But she means it.

He breaks. He fills a bag with stones and walks to the lake to drown. And then he thinks about Steve — the person who keeps telling him there’s someone to listen, someone to help carry the load. Instead of stepping into the water, Shy heads back to school and goes loud. He grabs stones and smashes the windows. It’s destructive and also very alive, a way to say the quiet part out loud.

"I am here, and I need you."

Meanwhile Steve finds Shy’s goodbye letter and spirals, convinced he’s already failed another child. He runs out, drunk, even falls in a ditch trying to find the kid. But Shy coming back gives Steve one breath of relief — a reminder that showing up still matters.

The last stretch: ditch, attic, and a lot of maybes

The ending is pointedly unresolved. After the search, Steve goes home to his wife and daughters — a family that clearly loves him — and is told to rest. He reaches for a bottle anyway. Final image: Steve climbing into the attic with that bottle.

What does that mean? Could be he’s stashing it because he knows he’s in trouble. Could be he’s giving in. He even floated the idea of running away earlier, so maybe that. Worst-case read: he’s headed upstairs to harm himself. The movie wants you to sit in that uncertainty — because that’s exactly where he’s living.

We do get one clear window into him: a recording he made for Shola, one of his students. In it, you hear the real Steve — the guy who accepts these kids as they are, fights for their futures, and means it. For them, he’s a lifeline. For himself, he can’t find the rope.

The Durdle Door of it all

A photo keeps popping up: Durdle Door, that limestone arch on the English coast. For Shy, it isn’t just a pretty picture; it becomes a fixed point. He loves stones, and here’s a giant, impossible arch carved by time and pressure — the ultimate version of what he collects. When his life collapses, the image becomes proof there’s still beauty worth walking toward.

It also doubles as the film’s thesis: those boys at Stanton Woods are shaped by relentless waves too. They’re chipped and battered, but they’re still standing. There’s beauty in the survival. Which is why the school’s closure lands like a moral failure — take away places like this, and a lot of kids drift right back into the storm.

Bottom line

Steve is a tight, bruising character piece about the person holding the safety net while fraying at every edge. It’s also a reminder that sometimes the hero needs rescuing, and the system rarely budgets for that.

Steve is streaming now on Netflix in the US. If you watched it: where do you land on that attic shot?