Venice: Danny Boyle Returns with "Ink"
Saturday, September 5, 2026 at 9:00PM 
Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice
We live in such a dark age of media, information, conflict and geopolitics that even Rupert Murdoch doesn't seem quite so evil anymore. Or at least his evilness now comes with a why, a when, a where, and all the other Ws clearly attached. It's paradoxical, considering that Ink opens with Murdoch trying to professionally seduce Jack O'Connell's Larry Lamb into becoming the editor of the least serious newspaper on Fleet Street, the heart of the British press back in 1969. (Murdoch is played by Guy Pearce who, after The Brutalist, apparently has become the go-to guy for tycoons who want to own talented people as if they were property.) Lamb tells Murdoch that, of the five Ws, "'Why' is the least important": sometimes there is no why behind what happens, and even when there is, not giving readers one makes it possible to rerun a story forever.
Lamb and Murdoch's power struggle is at the center of a movie that feels like the ideal follow-up to Boyle's little-loved Steve Jobs, another biopic full of shades of morally gray about a powerful mediatic figure...
When dealing with morally reprehensible people who actually existed, Boyle seems fascinated by the possibility of cutting deep with the knife while preserving the bleeding humanity underneath. Murdoch was first a real media villain and then the fictionalized one of the last century, the Citizen Kane of new media and dirty, scandal-driven newspapers. Today, it is virtually impossible to separate what we know about him through The Sun, the Royal Family scandals and the early years of Fox News from the profound influence of Succession and its transformative portrayal of him and his family.
So it's almost a small shock to see Boyle suggesting that, of course, Murdoch is morally corrupt, but also that he and Lamb, with their passion for the press (even the raunchy kind) represent both the beginning of the end of serious news reporting and some of the last examples of that kind of devotion to the profession. Interestingly, Murdoch liked the stage play that inspired the movie and has already said he wants to see Ink.
He will probably enjoy a story about two men united by their exclusion from the establishment and the ruthless way in which they try to beat it: business first, revenge as a side dish. They are the villains, but there is little room for sympathy toward an English press that mocks one for being Australian and "not serious," while refusing to let the other escape his role as a middleman at the biggest newspaper in the world in 1969, The Mirror. Guy Pearce and Jack O'Connell are very good at letting their insecurities about masculinity, class and their status as undesirable outsiders seep into a dynamic that becomes the soul of the movie: a power play between two people who, in the end, don't even particularly like one another, but dislike their common enemy more. They are bad, but they are still underdogs.
The first half hour of Ink is as ruthless and mean as it should be, but then Boyle decides not to risk the same subtle moral ambiguity he embraced in Steve Jobs, avoiding topics that would make it harder to reconcile the destruction of journalistic ethics with the outsiders' revenge narrative. There is very little about the Royal Family and next to nothing about the transformation of crime reporting into thriller-like storytelling, complete with titillating details. The moviechooses a more conventional, perhaps more convenient arc, while Boyle builds on technical experiments already seen in 28 Years Later, including rapid shifts in POV and a 360-degree approach to perspective. It's as bold as The Sun, "up and pronto for the average Joe," and moves accordingly: more than a moral tale, this is a dark, propulsive story. Notably, the reading audience itself is completely missing. The movie rarely leaves the world of the press: we are literally among the mice in The Sun newsroom or out in the world while still remaining inside the mind of its bullied, hardened editor. Because of its enthusiastic take on the value of dying profession that a certain kind of cinema loves to mourn, Ink feels like another entry in the very long list of movies holding a funeral for journalism and information.
INK © Netflix
The movie is smart, brisk and well written in its distinctly British sourness, supported by solid performances. Its only real stain is Claire Foy's fictional character, who feels so out of place as to become absurd. ules is a ruthless feminist journalist working for Murdoch's The Sun, bringing genuinely good content for women to the newspaper that launched the Page Six convention—and countering it by creating "The Willy Wall" in the newsroom. It doesn't ring true, because it isn't. The aggressively masculine, men-only nature of that experiment is a relevant part of its identity, and the absence of fully dressed, competent, morally decent women is kind of the point.
Boyle confirms that he's in very good shape, and Ink is one of the best starts to the Venice Film Festival in recent years.
Ink premires in US theaters in December and streams on Netflix in January.
Reader Comments (6)
Oscar chances or is this just an entertaining night at the movies,i'm pleased for O'Connell as I felt he was the best thing about the overrated Sinners cast last year..
This year's early Oscar race already seems too packed for this one to make it in as well. I think the Venice titles that will actually have a shot are Wild Horse Nine and Possible Love. Disney will probably put some effort behind the Oasis doc, though, considering the names behind it and the positive reviews?
Ugh, Murdoch, really? The idea of spending so much time with these unpleasant people makes this seem like a daunting task to me. I am guessing that Claire Foy's character was inserted just to get another point of view in the mix? And maybe the movie dismissing her storyline is sort of the point? I don't know, I'm just hoping this is better than it sounds because I usually like all the people involved.
PS amazing writing in this review!
Rupert Murdoch is still an evil piece of shit. Anyone who still associates themselves with him, fuck 'em. That includes Hugh Jackass.
It sounds interesting.
Let's wait and see..
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