BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER (2025)
When his past and his debts start to catch up with him, a high-stakes gambler encounters a kindred spirit who might hold the key to his salvation.
Edward Berger’s follow-up to Conclave (2024) is an attractive but soulless tale about an unlucky gambler and grifter, Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell), who’s taken up residence in Macau. Set in the neon-tinged Vegas of China, Berger’s adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel fails to dive under the surface of this hollow world of charming swindlers.
Set amid an artificial-looking Macau, Lord Doyle’s a gambler short on money and luck. He’s trying to lay low, hiding in a lavish hotel suite, but he can’t help but make a show of himself on the casino floor with bright yellow gloves and a penchant for buying the most expensive champagne. Despite the image he wants to give, everyone knows he’s falling apart, both inside and out, and his debts are about to catch up with him. It takes just one scene to understand who this man is and where he’s going.
During one especially big failure at the Baccarat table, casino employee Dao Ming (Fala Chen) offers Lord Doyle a lifeline. But there’s no such thing as a good deal in this city, and Doyle knows this. As stylish and luxe as Macau is, tragedy’s only around the corner, as displayed by the falling man who jumps off a building to avoid his gambling debt.
As if his troubles weren’t bad enough, a private investigator, Cynthia (Tilda Swinton), has tracked him down from his last life. And it takes one selfie from Cynthia to collapse the world Doyle was trying so hard to glue back together. There’s much talk of this past he’s running from; it’s teased and tempted but never explained. There’s promise of a cat-and-mouse game between the duo, but this becomes another unfulfilled plot point in the film.
Colin Farrell (The Penguin) uses all his charisma to carry Ballad of a Small Player. He’s nervous yet confident, arrogant yet also clearly in despair. Without spoiling the plot, Farrell essentially plays two characters, the real him and his alter ego, who swaggers around the casino floor. His performance fills out all the gaps left by the underdeveloped writing, giving Doyle more personality in his eyebrows than a big chunk of the script.
If Farrell is the face of the film, Fala Chen is the heart of Ballad of a Small Player. Her character weaves in and out of his story, softening Doyle’s personality. Alex Jennings also steals the film in just two scenes as Adrian Lippett, a fellow grifter who can spot one of his own a mile away in Lord Doyle. Deanne Ip is also memorable despite minimal scenes as a sweary, gambling Grandmother who proves herself to be one of Doyle’s biggest foes.
Tilda Swinton is great in the few scenes she appears in, but the writing never quite knows what to do with her (perhaps because the character isn’t from the source material). The private investigator initially appears as a yin to Doyle’s yang, the only character in Ballad of a Small Player not involved in the world of betting and drinking. The first meeting between Doyle and Cynthia, where they dance around their true identities, is one of the film’s high moments.
The first act sets up Doyle and all the small players of his ballad. The world-building is compelling if not obvious, effectively helping to set up this version of China and the specific people who live in Doyle’s world. The second act meanders through a romantic side plot that is even more frustrating after a predictable third-act twist. The romance between Doyle and Dao Ming should be more emotive than it ultimately is. She’s too good for him, convincing Doyleto become the person she knows he can be. At no point does the writing give a convincing argument as to why this kind young woman should waste her time on this disintegrating man. Ultimately, Dao is underwritten and merely a symbol to help him overcome his issues.
Doyle and Dao’s romance is one of the many uncomfortable moments where Ballad of a Small Player falls into the tired trope of a Westerner in a foreign land on a self-discovery journey. Macau and Hong Kong, and their customs, are mythologised as tools to help expats and tourists improve themselves, rather than ancient traditions to be respected by non-locals.
The closing act features a card game so tense it might as well have been a lightsabre battle. And this is where Ballad of a Small Player should have ended. However, it continues for one scene too many and tries to deliver one of the most obvious twists in recent times. This is just one of the many moments the film veers away from bringing something interesting and fresh to the big screen. Every time this script ventures near an interesting plot point, it quickly turns left and crashes into the obvious.
Ballad of a Small Player doesn’t know what direction it wants to go in. The writing darts between different genres and themes, becoming jarring in its tonal irregularities. The writing is often comic, especially in Farrell’s delivery, but it’s not always certain that this is intentional. The third act is an experimental fever dream, verging on horror, yet the conclusion glosses over some of these zanier elements. There are so many potential threads to pull within this plot, it’s baffling Joffe and Berger chose these specific ones.
Adapted by Rowan Joffe (28 Weeks Later), Ballad of a Small Player tantalisingly promises greatness. Joffe’s failure comes from how he adapted the material, dumping the flashbacks and instead making Doyle a more mysterious and ambiguous figure. Ditching his backstory just makes it harder to sympathise and root for him. Who is this man? Where did he get his money from? How did he get into this mess? There’s a hint of a screenwriter trying to quickly hit specific plot beats without worrying on the journey or the characters.
Where Joffe’s screenplay fails, Berger’s directing style and James Friend’s cinematography excel. The film looks good, almost distractingly good, using slick camera angles and neon lights to deflect from the boring dialogue and underbaked characters. Volker Bertelmann’s score also acts as a distraction, although a less pleasing one. It squeaks and shouts unrhythmically, mimicking Doyle’s walking fever dream and forcing you to take notice.
Ballad of a Small Player explores the hollowness behind the façade, which sums up this script. It pulls off some neat surface-level tricks, but there’s little going on once you strip back the lighting and cinematography. It’s a flashy tale full of cheap glamour with nothing to show for it, which sums up both the narrative and the script.
GERMANY • UK | 2025 | 102 MINUTES | 2.20:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • CANTONESE
Cast & Crew
director: Edward Berger.
writer: Rowan Joffé (based on the book by Lawrence Osborne) .
starring: Colin Farrell, Fala Chen, Deanie Ip, Alex Jennings & Tilda Swinton.
