Film Review: Ballad of a Small Player

Ballad of a Small Player
Director: Edward Berger
Good Chaos, Nine Hours, Stigma Films
Streaming on Netflix: 10.20.2025

The only downside to making two truly great films in a row, in a short period of time, is that it sets the third up for failure. If the bar is already set at the top, it’s almost boring to root for it to stay there; up or down are more interesting to talk and write about than staying level. Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player doesn’t demand your attention the way that All Quiet on the Western Front or Conclave did, but there’s a big difference between not quite great and not good at all.

Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Batman) is a posh and debonair English aristocrat with gambling problems, laying low in Macau. He spends his days and nights on the casino floors, drinking heavily and trying in vain to make something out of what little money he has left. Struggling to keep up with his fast-rising debts, and with an investigator who calls herself Betty (Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton, Snowpiercer) dogging his every move, Doyle is offered a lifeline by Dao Ming (Fala Chen, Lives of Omission), a beautiful and enigmatic casino hostess with secrets of her own. As Doyle tries to climb to salvation, the confines of reality start to close in.

Adapted from the novel by Lawrence Osborne, Ballad of a Small Player seems like less ambitious subject matter when directly compared to the horrors of war or corruption in religion and questioning the nature of God, yet it’s also a bit too stylishly eccentric and prone to melancholy to be mainstream popcorn movie. It’s an arthouse movie that is content to be merely a movie made with a lot of artistry, and I find it hard to find any serious fault to that choice. As a character piece and a story about desperation, redemption and finding faith in yourself through forgiveness, it’s an effective if rather simple story told in a delicious neo noir style with plenty of picturesque locations. Berger uses plenty of dutch angles and a dramatic musical score that often creates the feeling of an old Humphrey Bogart picture, and the throwback element really appealed to me 

Farrell is simply divine in any role, and there’s a purpose behind his not entirely convincing David Niven by way of Cary Grant approach to Lord Doyle. It’s really not a spoiler to say that Doyle isn’t who he says he is, and it makes for an entertaining if not particularly deep character. Farrell still ignites the screen, and I found myself easily swept up in the proceedings and actively rooting for him even as I struggled to find a clear reason to do so. Swinton is an incomparably intriguing presence who disappears so utterly into each role that I firmly believe that she could convincingly play anything from baby koala to an antique credenza with minimal make-up, and she’s in fine form here. Chen gives an elegant and capable performance, though as a character,  Dao Ming is a straightforward concoction made by tossing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and Redeemer Madonna archetypes into a blender with chopped ice and vodka. 

Ballad of a Small Player is likely to be remembered as one of Berger’s lesser films, yet it’s a tasty enough trifle that goes down easily. It’s not among the year’s best, but it’s less a misstep than a brief but enjoyable interlude between bigger and better things. —Patrick Gibbs 

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