Danny Boyle’s Ink Debuts at Venice Film Festival: A Heroic Portrayal of Rupert Murdoch

Danny Boyle’s high-energy biographical drama Ink, which explores media mogul Rupert Murdoch during his early years in the United Kingdom newspaper industry, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, generating immediate debate over its flattering portrayal of the divisive tycoon, according to reports from the BBC.

Adapted by James Graham from his own play, the film follows Murdoch after his move from Australia to London in 1969, where he acquired an ailing British daily tabloid newspaper, The Sun, and appointed a new editorial team. Guy Pearce stars as Murdoch, who is depicted not as a ruthless magnate, but as a plucky, anti-establishment underdog taking on an outdated and condescending British elite.

Venice Film Festival Reception and Critical Debate

The film’s framing has sparked sharp divisions among critics attending the festival. While the production received enthusiastic reviews for its rollicking pace and energy, several reviewers questioned whether the screenplay goes too easy on a figure often compared to fictional television moguls like Logan Roy from Succession.

Writing for Time Out, critic John Bleasdale called Ink a toothless, apolitical film that features a bizarrely moral version of Murdoch, as reported by the BBC. In contrast, director Danny Boyle defended his creative choices during a press conference in Venice, stating that he sympathizes with the anti-establishment figure of 1969. Boyle told reporters that Murdoch was a breath of fresh air in what was a very rigid British society at the time.

Contrasting Portrayals of Modern Media Moguls

Whereas a recent dramatization of Donald Trump’s early business career, titled The Apprentice, offered a decidedly unsparing look at its protagonist, Boyle and Graham’s film leans into the dramatic tension of an ambitious outsider clashing with aristocratic bullies who sneer at his Australian roots. These encounters are staged in a way that often tempts audiences to take Murdoch’s side, even when the aristocratic critics raise fair points about the long-term societal damage wrought by his media empire. The film leaves viewers to wrestle with whether Murdoch stands as a visionary champion of the free press or the architect of its most harmful excesses.