Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was notably fictionalised in the much-lauded (and much-memed) series Succession, albeit serving as loose inspiration – Murdoch was a starting point, and we didn’t know how the story would play out. But if Succession looked to the dynastic power-grabbing over an aging patriarch’s conglomerate, Ink sets its sights much further back. This is the story of the ascent, when a much younger Murdoch began to gain a foothold in British society. This time, we know how this story plays out.
Guy Pearce plays the Australian media mogul, who has information to share at a rendezvous with Jack O’Connell’s Larry Lamb. Having acquired the newspaper The Sun, he presents Lamb with a pitch: to edit the newspaper and make it the best-selling newspaper in the world. A fool’s errand is how Lamb sees this, as a mere mention of The Sun elicits a groan from him. The paper does not sell and it cannot sell, especially not when the British public are fiercely loyal to their regular newspapers. We have our impossible stakes, yet we also know that The Sun will go on to smash circulation records for British newspapers. How did they get there?
Lamb, an editor at The Daily Mirror who feels he’s been hard done by, takes up the offer, despite his initial misgivings. He then sets about filling out his newsroom, poaching the disgruntled, dangling rewards, coaxing writers away from retirement. Jules Davies (played by a wonderful Claire Foy) is one such recruit, lured by the prospect of a women’s column, attempting to change the machismo of the Fleet Street boys’ club.
This is a film that needs a figure like Danny Boyle to steer the ship. He splatters text, colour, and animation across the screen, he turns things slantwise and cuts with a frenetic vigour. Who else could make a film feel capitalised and italicised, much in the same way that Lamb mauls the newspaper formatting at The Sun? It’s also stylistically fitting for the muscular operation of creating a newspaper on the production floor; reminders of the damp newsprint and the roar and shudder of the presses are aplenty.
Wanting to differentiate themselves from the buttoned-up ‘establishment’, Lamb and his newsroom go straight for the sensationalist and salacious: think themed weeks (knickers week being one enchanting example), giveaways, horoscopes, glamour models. Feathers inevitably get ruffled, but the tabloid bats away any criticism with confidence: we’re just giving the people what they want.
Now, we’ve seen this basic story a number of times – swap out the names and see how things fit. We begin with an outsider and plucky underdog on a mission to prove themselves. Their single-minded pursuit of greatness gets them far, but lofty heights and unchecked power make space for compromised morals to creep in. Then comes the Pyrrhic victory as things go awry: losing friends and allies, a withered love of the game, even self-dehumanisation. Oppenheimer, The Social Network, and even Marty Supreme have variously been described in similar terms.
The fact that certain stories bear similarities is no smoking gun; yet the slightest falter invites some comparison. Ink has its darkest chapter when Muriel McKay, the wife of Murdoch’s deputy Alick, is kidnapped, with The Sun involving itself in her attempted rescue. The incident threatens to be the paper’s undoing, even when the kidnappers were targeting Anna Murdoch, Rupert’s then-wife – a mistaken identity foiling their plans. A nadir if there ever was one, but the section hovers awkwardly between all the raunch and never gets the full exploration that it merits.
O’Connell gets top billing here, and rightly so – Ink is Larry Lamb’s story, even if Murdoch was the one who would emerge with far greater notoriety and become the household name. Murdoch purchased the paper; Lamb got free rein to do what he wanted with it. Of course, we know that Murdoch allied himself (and his papers) with the Conservative government, and the film shows the beginnings of this uneasy development. Most of the time, however, Murdoch is simply the disapproving onlooker to Lamb’s shocking antics – meaning that, of all people, Murdoch gets a nice bit of reputation laundering. O’Connell is excellent as the brutal and ruthless newshound, as is Pearce as the lizardly and more elusive Murdoch, though neither are truly given the full range of characterisation that would keep pace with their acting abilities.
Boyle ends the film with a dizzying montage of media clips from today, unsurprisingly featuring the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The throughline is less suggested than outright handed to us: the degradation of news into entertainment has laid the groundwork for our current era of misinformation and distrust, as well as a world in which anyone can pick up a camera and cause a stir among the general public.
Even with print sales falling rapidly, The Sun continues to be widely read. Another faction wouldn’t touch the paper with a ten-foot pole, and one could hazard a guess that the latter group are this film’s more likely audience. And the film, entertaining as it may be, will most likely welcome an audience who come with their preconceptions thrown in – before sending them away, preconceptions unaltered.
Ink screened at the London Film Festival and will be in UK cinemas on 8 January 2027.
