Ink

Director Danny Boyle (TIFF ’08’s People Choice Award winner Slumdog Millionaire) stylishly adapts playwright James Graham’s wild recounting of how The Sun became one of the most successful newspapers in British history while launching tabloid culture.

Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce, The Brutalist, TIFF ’24) persuades newspaper editor Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) to oversee his newly acquired but flagging daily, The Sun. But how to grab readers in the highly competitive British media market? Be extreme, throwing anything onto the page that will make a splash, the more titillating, the better. The tactic works, and soon the notorious Sun sees a massive spike in circulation.

The goal of casting a wide net for new readers creates just enough space for one woman  (Claire Foy) to break through and pitch articles with a modern woman’s perspective. It’s not long before she starts to brush against the limits of the prevailing boys’ club culture within the industry. And as readership numbers rise, so do the paper’s detractors.

O’Connell is riveting as the ambitious and morally compromised Lamb, pushing the team to go ever further while Pearce gives a carefully calibrated portrayal of Murdoch as both reticent and ruthless, driven by an outsider’s resentment. Fast-paced and gripping, Boyle’s Ink traces this dark journalistic legacy that continues to reverberate today.

ROBYN CITIZEN

Content advisory: violence, sexual content, nudity, drug use, coarse language, crude content, strobing effects