By any fair standard, Danny Boyle‘s Ink (Netflix, 12.11.26 theatrically, 1.8.27 streaming) is a successful slam-banger — an appropriately tawdry and punchy saga of how Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) pooled forces with the late Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell), the hungry, scrappy, working-class editor of The Sun between 1969 and 1972, and then again from 1975 to 1981.
On one hand pic is an atmospherically romantic tale of old-school print journalism (I recall writing a piece about the death of John Lennon on a clackety-clack typewriter in a Fleet Street newsroom, one day after 12.8.80) and on the other hand the saga of two aggressive dudes who introduced a low-rent, opportunistic brand of journalism some 47 years ago…
Boiled down, Rupert and Larry were relatively shameless fellows who coarsened journalistic standards while launching the British tabloid industry, and in so doing unleashed the dogs of primitive reportage and low-rent sensationalism…social furies that have not only born fruit over the last half-century but are currently flapping around like pterodactyls.
Boyle has shot and edited with a certain breathless tabloid energy (it reminded me of Trainspotting in this respect), although Ink, truth be told, doesn’t offer all that much in the way of engaging, effective humor. The vibe is energetic but there’s nowhere to go but down, down, down into the regret pit.
Is Ink depressing? No — it’s agreeably rude and lively but underneath you’re saying to yourself “this is fun but it’s certainly not good for anyone’s soul”.
I went in hoping that Ink might unfold like some kind of British tabloid version of Goodfellas, but it falls a bit short in this regard. Remember the hellish montage at the end of Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman? Ink ends on a somewhat similar note.
With playwright James Graham having adapted his 2017 stage play for the screen, the basic scheme is one of aggressive degradation. Murdoch and Lamb are determined to make The Sun into the top-selling tabloid of its era, and by steadily lowering the bar (partly by way of nubile, half-nude hotties on “Page 3“) they eventually get there.
Pic is basically a three-hander — O’Connell, Pearce and Claire Foy as “Jules Davies”, a fictional Sun reporter whose dramatic task is basically to remind Lamb as well as viewers that this and that ethical standard is being elbowed aside.
The dramatic highpoint focuses on Lamb’s aggressive, no-holds-barred coverage of the kidnapping and murder of Muriel McKay, a tragedy that today bears certain resemblances to the recent kidnapping and presumed death of Nancy Guthrie. (A pair of moron-level perpetrators, no corpse ever discovered, etc.)
The 55-year-old McKay was abducted after being mistaken for Anna Murdoch, Rupert’s then‑wife. McKay had been married to Alick McKay, a highly-placed Murdoch lieutenant. All in all I felt provoked and diverted by Ink, and certainly never bored. But at the same time a bit sullied. What does it all amount to in the end? That is the question.
