After proving himself with the sweeping spectacle of All Quiet on the Western Front and the tight, shadowy intrigue of Conclave, Edward Berger has shown a rare knack for balancing precision and grandeur. Ballad of a Small Player, however, feels like both an expansion and a regression for the acclaimed filmmaker. His latest is a film that dazzles the eye but struggles to find its soul.
Set amid the glittering artificiality of Macau — nicknamed the ‘Vegas of China” — Berger’s adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s novel follows Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell), a British grifter and gambler who’s ran out of both luck and money. Doyle’s charade of aristocratic charm is beginning to crack, revealing a man desperate to find his way again. Farrell plays him beautifully: nervous, hollow and constantly teetering between arrogance and despair. It’s the kind of performance that reminds us just how brilliantly precise Farrell can be when a role demands it.
Chinese-born American actress Fala Chen gives one of the film’s most grounded and human performances as Dao Ming, a casino hostess who becomes an unexpected confidante to Lord Doyle. Where much of Ballad of a Small Player thrives on excess — the flashing lights, the operatic music, the fevered indulgence. She plays Dao Ming with a mix of pragmatism and compassion, aware of the moral fog surrounding her job and its consequences for the desperate gamblers she serves. And while the screenplay doesn’t give Dao Ming as much space as she deserves, Chen makes every scene count.
Elsewhere, Tilda Swinton brings a striking eccentricity to Doyle’s enigmatic counterpart, her presence adding an off-kilter tone that keeps the film from ever feeling predictable. Dressed, some might say, like a Wes Anderson character, she injects Ballad of a Small Player with a surreal energy that’s both unsettling and magnetic.
There’s no denying Berger’s craftsmanship here. Every frame is deliberate, every neon reflection purposeful. His Macau is seductive and suffocating in equal measure, a maze of excess where every indulgence leads a little closer to complete ruin. The film flirts with greatness when it peers into the psychology of destructive addiction — moments when Doyle’s hunger for one more game, one more drink, one more anything feels very relatable.
But the narrative eventually collapses under its own weight. The final act leans on familiar clichés, and what begins as an exploration of compulsion ends as something much more ordinary.
Berger remains a fascinating filmmaker who is capable of immense beauty and control, but this time his technical brilliance can’t make up for the film’s lack of emotional depth. Farrell’s performance single-handedly saves the film from collapse, and while The Ballad of a Small Player remains a cinematic gamble, it still manages to keep you hooked, despite a final reveal that feels a bit too on the nose.
