Maybe the Conclave Guy Is Actually Bad at Making Movies?

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“Ballad of a Small Player” fits into a familiar pattern of stories about Westerners traveling to Asia to indulge in excess and unhappiness. In these stories, Asia isn’t a real place, but a playground where being a foreigner can be an advantage, and foreign money buys a lavish lifestyle. The film, based on Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel, acknowledges the outdated and stereotypical way this kind of story is often told, but doesn’t really try to change it. It’s set in Macau, a former Portuguese colony and now a Chinese gambling hub, which is depicted as a glamorous, brightly lit entertainment destination. The film feels like a blend of “Blade Runner” and “The World of Suzie Wong,” but instead of focusing on a vulnerable showgirl, it centers on Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a loan shark who becomes involved with the main character after extending him credit to cover his gambling losses.

In Macau, the film’s main character, played by Colin Farrell, feels like an outsider – a ‘gweilo,’ or foreign ghost, practically invisible to those around him. He narrates that this anonymity allows him to reinvent himself. The story’s central twist is that he’s deliberately playing a role: pretending to be a wealthy British lord named Lord Doyle. He adopts the trappings of the upper class – silk scarves, a neatly trimmed mustache, and a pair of leather gloves he claims are from a prestigious tailor on Savile Row. It doesn’t really matter if anyone believes his act; people are happy to take his money. However, by the film’s beginning, his funds are dwindling, and he’s trying to avoid paying the hefty bills he’s accumulated for his luxurious hotel suite and room service.

The film Ballad of a Small Player unnecessarily delays revealing that its protagonist, Doyle, isn’t wealthy or from an aristocratic background – treating it as a surprise twist instead of essential context. Doyle is a struggling alcoholic and gambler who fled the UK to Macau after stealing money from a client, with no real plan beyond perhaps ending his own life. The movie is directed by Edward Berger, who gained recognition for his 2022 film All Quiet on the Western Front and last year’s Conclave. While those films were competent, and Conclave benefited from its intriguing premise, this new movie suggests Berger struggles to elevate his source material, or even fully meet its expectations. He focuses on visually representing Doyle’s blurred state, as if influenced by his constant drinking, which is a stylistic choice that works better than his tendency to place the character in large, crowded scenes to highlight his sense of displacement.

The film’s visual style, particularly when focusing on Doyle in Hong Kong, feels reminiscent of a lower-budget Wes Anderson film, a feeling enhanced by Tilda Swinton’s appearance as a quirky investigator. While Swinton’s character is meant to create conflict – she’s there to demand Doyle repay a debt or face deportation – the movie fails to make us care about his situation. Doyle is already down on his luck when the story begins, and the film doesn’t give us a reason to root for him. It’s disappointing that we don’t see him enjoy even a little of the experiences he’s traveled so far to have. Instead, the film relentlessly focuses on his self-destructive spiral and joyless decline. Colin Farrell delivers a one-dimensional performance as a man desperately trying to indulge in luxury – endlessly eating and drinking, and losing at gambling – as if bracing for the end. Throughout his travels in opulent resorts, he only sees his own failures reflected back at him, as though the entire world is a distorted mirror.

Honestly, as someone who loves a good character study, I found Ballad of a Small Player pretty lacking when it came to portraying addiction or depression. It just didn’t really go there. What’s even more frustrating is the film’s insistence that this woman will cling to a pretty unlikeable white guy even in death – it’s almost darkly humorous, but the movie doesn’t seem to realize it, or have the ability to pull off that kind of tone.

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2025-10-30 17:57