Venice saw Danny Boyle's film about Murdoch buying The Sun, and the reactions are ecstatic

Here we go again then – Danny Boyle has taken James Graham's stage hit Ink and blown it up for the big screen, dragging the whole saga of Rupert Murdoch buying The Sun straight through a Boyle-shaped lens. If you like your journalism movies in the vein of a wild night out in Soho gone wrong, this is clearly the one for you.

The Story

The plot is pure 60s tabloid chaos: a young Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce), fresh-faced and not yet the international media baron, wades into British newspapers and buys The Sun. He brings in Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell), an editor keen on causing a ruckus, and they set about transforming the British press — basically by cranking up the sensationalism and starting wars with every other paper going. Their secret weapon is Claire Foy, cast as a forward-thinking feminist journalist hired to stop the paper becoming a total lad’s mag. It’s worth saying: the casting is on point. Also, credit due, Boyle didn’t exactly hold back on the frenetic style he’s famous for — quick cuts, bold colours, crash zooms, the whole bag of tricks.

Ink debuts in cinemas on 11 December, with a Netflix streaming release for the US and Latin America landing on 8 January 2027.

Venice Festival Buzz

This one just had its world premiere at Venice and, if you go by the first wave of critics, Ink is a proper livewire. People seem genuinely fired up. One festival-goer’s take compared it to both Trainspotting and Nightcrawler, which tells you just how mad this newspaper circus gets — loads of shouting, bad decisions, and people fighting to shift as many papers as humanly possible. Another observer was all-in on its energy, calling it a "wickedly entertaining triumph", which, to be fair, does sound exactly like a phrase someone would yell after three espressos and a screening like this.

The Cast Delivers

If you're less into film-school showboating and more into the acting, don't skip this for that reason. Claire Foy's journalist has everyone talking, and critics seem nearly unanimous that she’s the film’s high point — steady as anything at the start, unravelling as the paper gets nastier by the week. Ryan Lattanzio at IndieWire reckons Boyle might go a bit overboard with the style, but says Foy grounds the whole thing:

As Lattanzio puts it, 'the best part of the movie, at first unflappable but eventually deeply disturbed about where the paper is heading.'

Still, the Boyle bombast isn’t for everyone. After four decades of kinetic films, it’s what you now expect if you see his name slapped on a poster. Even Lattanzio admits, Boyle’s directing like he’s just discovered cameras, drenching everything in Dutch angles, zooms, weird step-printing – all of which could either sweep you along or have you wishing you’d just stayed in for a documentary instead.

Murdoch’s Seal of Approval (Sort Of)

Here’s a little curios for the British media anoraks: it’s not clear if the real Rupert Murdoch has actually watched Boyle’s take on his origin story. What’s certain is that he’s reportedly thrilled with Guy Pearce being cast as him. Given Murdoch’s reputation, you have to imagine he’d at least try to have a say in the casting, if nothing else.

• Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch
• Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb
• Claire Foy as the feminist columnist