This Ink review was made possible by Popped attending a Press and Industry screening at the 70th BFI London Film Festival.
Danny Boyle and Jack O’Connell reunite for this zombie-free outing in Ink, an adaptation of James Graham‘s play of the same name, though there are plenty of horrors for audiences to see in this biopic.
Ink documents the controversial relaunch of The Sun under Australian oligarch Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce). Under his bold plan to buy the joke of a newspaper, Murdoch recruits Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) to lead the charge as its new editor. Under Lamb’s command, The Sun quickly earns a reputation for sensationalist stories. Ink dramatises the rise of the tabloid as well as some of its controversies.
The Observer
Hot off his performances in Sinners and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Jack O’Connell is back on the big screen, and this time he’s leading the show. But he’s not quite done playing a villain, because Larry Lamb, at least the one presented in Ink, is far from a hero.
O’Connell is experiencing a renaissance, and I’m here for it, because if he wasn’t the star of Ink, then I’m not sure whether I would have liked it as much as I did. And believe me, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it all that much. O’Connell oozes a suavity that makes Larry Lamb a commanding presence alongside characters like Rupert Murdoch. He also manages to make him a little scary and, dare I say, a little sexy too? At least, sexier than anyone at The Sun deserves to be portrayed.
It’s not his best performance, so I don’t think he’s a big contender for any major awards, but that’s not to say he isn’t good. No, he’s the best part of Ink, by far. While some scenes in Ink felt plodding, most were saved by O’Connell’s splendid performance.
Variety
Ink is advertised with Guy Pearce as a co-star, and while he is a big player in the movie (he plays Rupert Murdoch, so…), I was surprised to see that he’s not in it as much as I thought he’d be. The film really is a Larry Lamb movie, not a Rupert Murdoch movie. That being said, Pearce is fine in the role, though I feel like he was playing it safe and reserved, almost as if this billionaire were just an everyman. His performance, while good, didn’t stand out to me, especially for a movie with such a stellar supporting cast, including Claire Foy and Jonathan Hyde.
Truthfully, I could go on about the performances because they were my favourite part of Ink, alongside the choppy, fast-paced editing, which helped evoke the speed of the newspaper printing machine. As a writer, I didn’t think too much of James Graham’s screenplay. Graham, who adapted the film from his own Tony Award-nominated play, crafts a story that feels more like fiction than fact, and that’s just going by character motivations, the portrayal of certain real figures and the amalgamation of others. Nothing uncommon in a biopic, but when you’re writing a movie about a newspaper as controversial as The Sun, there are going to be one or two issues.
The Big Issue
The movie has one big Australian elephant standing in its way, one who may not be as much of a leading player as the ads might have you believe, but whose role is still odd, despite the fact that this is a movie that is, in a sense, partially about him. And that elephant is Rupert Murdoch.
It might be a stretch to some, but I’d go as far as to say that the portrayal of Murdoch is not only ridiculous, it’s clear that someone along the line must’ve been scared of a hefty defamation lawsuit. So, instead of an honest portrayal of Murdoch, Boyle and Graham present him as a pseudo-benevolent figurehead who doesn’t approve of Lamb’s methods, but it’s all hunky-dory as long as they’re still selling papers. We’re led to believe that he’s a savvy businessman who simply let Lamb take The Sun off the rails on his own. Any spotlight of shame shone upon him is dimmed to remove almost all responsibility and accountability, instead pinning everything on Larry Lamb, who just so happens to be deceased in real life, so he’s conveniently the only one of the pair unable to have his say in a story that puts Rupert Murdoch, of all people, on a pedestal.
Now, I’m no scholar in the history of The Sun, but I highly doubt that every decision made was solely Lamb’s. There are several scenes where Murdoch and The Sun staff question Lamb’s methods, yet they go along with them every time. The only people we see taking action are the unionised printers. For a newspaper with such a poor reputation that lives on to this day, I cannot for the life of me believe this was all because of a single person. The Sun and the issues it continuously causes and helps perpetuate are a generational problem that cannot be put down to a single person.
And then there is the AI-lephant in the room.
The AI, coupled with the obvious historical changes, makes Ink occasionally feel like a fantasy film. Not in the Lord of the Rings sense, but in the sense that it is so removed from real life that it just feels fantastical. The image of Margaret Thatcher marching through The Sun‘s office, her feet stomping with authority, all leads up to an interesting scene. And then it happens. She leans down, we see her face and she declares Larry Lamb a knight. The scene is meant to be surreal, and it’s a good thing it’s short because the AI butchers it. Yes, you can tell right off the bat that Maggie Thatch has been hallucinated by some AI model. It’s her, clearly, but she’s off, just like most AI constructs.
The same goes for the Kray twins, whose pictures are brought to life through AI in what I thought was a lot more jarring than Margaret Thatcher’s “cameo”. The only AI aspects of the film I didn’t notice were the mice that occupy The Sun‘s office.
The AI scenes in Ink are so inconsequential that they could have avoided all this nonsense by hiring real actors or using stock footage. The AI is distracting, and it took me, and, if the laughter during Margaret Thatcher’s “cameo” is anything to go by, others, right out of the film. I fear that these scenes will haunt an otherwise decent movie.
‘Ink’ Review – Final Thoughts
Ink is a decent movie and a perfect “Dad film”, if you get me. It has glaring issues, and the screenplay doesn’t seem to be as good an adaptation as it could be. Boyle’s direction helps keep it safe, even if it means glossing over or blending real history to create a more straightforward narrative. But in the process, they dilute just how bad The Sun can be and pin it all on one person, despite the world knowing about its owner and the people it employs.
Ink releases in UK cinemas on January 8, 2027. Check out a trailer below:
