Boyle's 'Ink' on Murdoch's Sun Earns 4-Minute Venice Ovation — SkimNews
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- "Ink" premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday and received a standing ovation of nearly four-and-a-half minutes, cut short after Jack O'Connell and Claire Foy began walking back to their seats despite festival director Alberto Barbera directing the cast to move up on the Palazzo del Cinema stairs.
- Jack O'Connell stars as Sun editor Larry Lamb, Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch, and Claire Foy as fictional journalist Jules Davies in a 1969 London-set drama about Murdoch buying The Sun and turning it into a high-selling tabloid.
- Danny Boyle, who noted the movie doesn't "monsterize" Murdoch, called him "a breath of fresh air" in rigid 1960s British society, defending the portrayal in a morning press conference.
- Netflix acquired "Ink" before the festival; the film is competing for the Golden Lion, opens in theaters Dec. 11 and lands on the streamer Jan. 8 after stops at Telluride and Toronto.
- Maggie Gyllenhaal, presiding over the jury, said movies are "fundamentally, unavoidably political" and pointed to Gaza and Ukraine tensions as part of the charged backdrop, while flagging that only two Golden Lion contenders — May El-Toukhy's "Woman Unknown" and the "No Other Land" filmmakers' "Naza" — were directed by women.
- George Clooney was honored with a life-achievement award at the same evening, walking the red carpet with Amal Clooney alongside O'Connell, Pearce, Foy and Boyle before the screening.
Why it matters: Netflix made its awards-season bet on a Murdoch origin story before the festival opened, gambling that a sympathetic portrait from a Best Director–caliber filmmaker can compete for Venice's top prize ahead of its Jan. 8 streaming bow. Boyle's choice to frame Murdoch as a liberating force rather than a monster — made explicit at the press conference — is the film's biggest editorial call, arriving at a festival where Gyllenhaal has already staked the jury on the proposition that no subject is off-limits.
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