Ink (2026)- BFI London Film Festival 2026

116min

Genre:       Fact-based, Biography, Comedy, Drama

Director:    Danny Boyle

Cast:         Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce, Claire Foy…and more

Writers:     James Graham

-Synopsis-

In 1968 Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch acquires struggling British broadsheet newspaper “The Sun” and hires hotshot editor Larry Lamb to change its fortunes, as they lean on sleaze and scandal to give the people what they want and transform it into a lucrative tabloid on the way to building an empire and changing the media, cultural, and political landscape of the UK . . . and well beyond, in this biopic dramatisation of the UK tabloid media takeover from the director ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.

Just over a decade after tackling a true story of bold, visionary and controversial corporate figures who changed the modern world with 2015’s ‘Steve Jobs’, acclaimed English director Danny Boyle returns to take on the British press and some of its most notorious and influential figures, applying his signature dynamic style and focusing his refined lens on another group of flawed and often unsympathetic individuals, adapting James Graham’s acclaimed 2017 West End play to craft this period chronicle of the rise of the tabloids and the shifting politically influential press landscape, plus a biographical drama portrait of controversial business titans and their transformation of the Western media.

Jack O’Connell stars as ambitious Yorkshireman newspaper editor Larry Lamb, based in Manchester in 1969 but looking to take a chunk out of the Fleet Street establishment and his former London employers at The Daily Mirror who thumbed their nose at him, including his arrogant and powerful former boss Hugh Cudlipp (Bertie Carvel). Enter brash and bold Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) to upend the industry and shake up the old boys’ club when he makes Lamb an offer he can’t refuse and poaches him to edit his recently acquired struggling broadsheet newspaper “The Sun”, as they overhaul the paper and hire a colourful cast of characters including spirited reporter “Jules Davies” (Claire Foy) to provide a new female perspective, cultured sub-editor Bernard Shrimsley (Patrick Kennedy), and veteran sport editor Frank Nicklin (Christopher Fulford), while executive and Murdoch right-hand-man Sir Alick McKay (Jonathan Hyde) oversees this new circus.

But when leaning on sex and scandal and giving the British public what they want but rarely gets brings unprecedented tabloid success and makes “The Sun” the biggest-selling daily paper in the country, tensions begin to rise at the top when Lamb gets lost in his ego and lines of morality and good taste are crossed, as the paper heads towards being a cog in a new media machine which would change the face of Western media and culture in a coming brave new world.

There’s a certain kind of energy and vibrancy that you expect when watching a Danny Boyle film and despite ‘Ink’ being anchored by its biographical nature and its setting away from the swinging late 60s of the West End in the more austere and traditional news rooms of Fleet Street in the City of London—not to mention unfolding largely in the more sober and gritty 1970s—there’s still a dynamic flow to be found in the narrative as British playwright James Graham adapts his own stage play for the screen and Boyle employs an array of camera techniques and dynamic cuts, giving the film a magnetic feel reminiscent of his own previous work and even the likes of Scorsese’s.

The mood is further set by a bumping and sometimes anachronistic needle-drop soundtrack of rock, pop, punk and soul tunes from the 70s and 80s but occasionally more modern fare, blended with a driving and kinetic score from English composer Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Project Hail Mary) which reflects the bombastic style of tabloid journalism. The style of the piece meanwhile is set by the production and costume teams who help to vividly recreate the UK and London of the late 1960s into the 70s, including some fascinating depictions of actual presses and the traditional and sacred but now near extinct newspaper printing process, complete with accompanying unions and superstitions, all stylishly shot in studios, London locales and more rural locations by German cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler (Sunshine, Steve Jobs).

The film is laced with plenty of levity, comedy, and even some risqué and earthy British humour too, yet even though ‘Ink’ does maintain its dynamism and energy for the most part, the tone does change substantially between the 2^nd and 3^rd acts with a bleak kidnapping which proves the most dramatic and serious element of the film and represents a turning point of the narrative in terms of consequences and moral line-crossing. But despite it being well executed by Boyle & co. it does come abruptly and feels slightly out of place in the overall scheme of the story, and ultimately doesn’t come off as grave and sobering as it should be given the shocking nature of the real events.

Unsurprisingly given the subject matter and real people involved, ‘Ink’ also proves to be one of Danny Boyle’s most historically mindful, socially conscious, and politically reflective films to date, taking aim at modern media with a finale which draws a clear throughline between the provocative, risqué and irresponsible press with little regard for the consequences of the era depicted in the film, all the way to today’s wave of 24 hour, polemic, populist, alternative facts fake news which has swept through the West and beyond, re-shaping society and affecting the world around it.

Even though ‘Ink’ is a cinematic portrait of the catalyst for the beginning of the long degradation of true journalism and news reporting, and an indictment of the figures involved, it ultimately doesn’t prove too savage a takedown and at times is ironically more sympathetic towards them than the media itself has been. In the end this is really a fast-flowing and stylish meditation on outsiders with chips on their shoulders unapologetically taking on the stuffy, stale and judgemental British establishment, not only in the press world but beyond.

And it’s those formidable and controversial figures around whom the film revolves, with the success of ‘Ink’ ultimately falling on the shoulders of the performers who play them, as Boyle assembles an eclectic cast of British talents with a hint of Aussie flavour to meet the challenge. Led by English star Jack O’Connell as the film’s complex protagonist Larry Lamb, portrayed as a bold and ambitious outsider with something to prove, relentless in his pursuit of success and willing to cross many lines, an intractable figure who wouldn’t prove as sympathetic were it not for the towering performance and sheer charisma of the actor playing him. And he inevitably butts heads with the big boss and Australian of the piece Rupert Murdoch expertly played by the reliably strong Guy Pearce—whose surprisingly reserved and flattering portrayal would likely please the real Aussie media magnate—a different side of the same coin as Lamb but more reserved and pragmatic, whose path begins to diverge from the star editor he recruited to change the press game, an editor who would ironically becomes the victim of that change.

The Bottom Line…

A dynamic period chronicle of the UK tabloid takeover and the seeds of the degradation of Western journalism, a pulsating portrait of brash and bold outsiders upending the British press establishment, and a captivating chip-on-your-shoulder story of a rise and fall, with ‘Ink’ Danny Boyle delivers another solid and energetic biographical drama and further underlines his position as one of the premiere British filmmakers working today.

‘Ink’ is out in selected US cinemas on the 11th of December, and on the 8th of January 2027 in the UK.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Steve Jobs (2015)

Based on the bestselling biography by Walter Isaacson and written & directed by Academy award winners Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle respectively, Michael Fassbender stars as the late Apple Inc. CEO and co-founder in a dramatic quasi-biopic centred around three major 20th century product launches that shaped the career and complicated personality of a modern visionary.

Directed by Danny Boyle and starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet and Seth Rogen among others.

Comments

comments