Ballad of a Small Player Review: Ghost Bet

Colin Farrell antes up in Ballad of a Small Player, a haunting Macau-set character study of reinvention, addiction, and illusion.

Based on Lawrence Osborne’s novel, the film finds the disgraced aristocrat Doyle living off borrowed time and money, his crisp suits and yellow gloves a desperate performance of wealth he no longer possesses. When mysterious casino employee Dao Ming (Fala Chen, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) offers him an unexpected lifeline, Doyle glimpses salvation—until private investigator Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin) arrives from England to drag him back to whatever monetary sins he’s fled. As Macau’s Hungry Ghost Festival builds to its climactic burn, the boundaries between Doyle’s reality and his feverish hallucinations begin to blur.

Farrell delivers another transfixing, career-defining performance that confirms his evolution from Hollywood bad boy to one of cinema’s most compelling character actors. His Doyle is simultaneously magnetic and repulsive, a wounded grandee whose charm can’t quite mask the desperation seeping through his pores. It’s theatrical without being showy, and if awards bodies still cared about restraint within flamboyance, he’d be in serious contention. Farrell plays Doyle not as a fallen man chasing likability, but as one who has already been flattened and keeps standing up out of reflex, revealing vulnerability beneath the bluster without ever judging his character’s contradictions.

Ballad of a Small Player‘s supporting cast proves less successful. Chen brings serene intelligence to Dao Ming, but Rowan Joffe’s script gives her too little interiority to work with, keeping her character frustratingly opaque. While her chemistry with Farrell crackles during their shared scenes, the screenplay’s reluctance to fully illuminate her motivations feels like a missed opportunity. Chen’s character hovers like a symbol, perhaps of hope, perhaps of doom, but never quite becomes a person. Swinton, always game for the odd, plays Blithe with her trademark eccentricity and sharp line readings, but the performance lacks emotional ballast. She’s strange, but not grounded; an affect without anchor. One wishes she’d dig deeper beneath mere surface strangeness.

The film’s seductive visuals carry it through its narrative shortcomings. Cinematographer James Friend captures Macau as both paradise and trap: fountains erupting to operatic crescendos, gold-plated casino floors that feel like temples to addiction, the oppressive beauty of capitalist overindulgence. Sets and outfits by Jonathan Houlding and Lisy Christl are so stylized they feel dreamt, not built. Volker Bertelmann’s score pulses with the same manic energy as the slot machines ringing around Farrell, building to crescendos that mirror Doyle’s psychological state perfectly. Bertelmann orchestrates the most beautiful symphonic panic attack you’ve ever heard.

Berger demonstrates remarkable ability to craft ensemble pieces where every element serves his singular vision. His direction finds operatic grandeur in Doyle’s descent while never losing sight of the character’s essential humanity. In a culture obsessed with healing and nostalgia, Doyle becomes a stand-in for all of us, rewriting our stories while reality tightens its grip. Ballad of a Small Player works as a reflection on modern emptiness, where having everything leaves you with nothing, and Macau’s manufactured max-Vegas luxury becomes the perfect backdrop for exploring spiritual bankruptcy.

Despite its visual splendor and thematic ambition, the film stumbles in crucial areas. The mystery elements meander rather than build, with the big “reveal” feeling more like delayed inevitability than genuine surprise. The script struggles to balance soul-searching drama with its half-formed thriller elements. The film’s deliberate pacing, particularly around the halfway mark, may test audiences’ patience, especially at home, where distractions multiply and the spell breaks more easily.

Theatrically, the overwhelm becomes immersive, and audiences might walk out dazed and appreciative, if not fully satisfied. But the drama never quite marries its noir ambitions with its meditative introspection. In trying to juggle comedy, surrealism, and romance alongside its central themes of mystery and self-mythology, the film starts to feel like it’s bluffing. You respect its ambition but don’t quite believe its poker face.

While Ballad of a Small Player may not represent the most groundbreaking entry in its creators’ filmographies, it succeeds as a beautifully crafted character study showcasing Farrell’s continued artistic growth and Berger’s evolving mastery of cinematic atmosphere. The ballad may feel more like a ditty than the epic it aspires to be, but Farrell’s magnetic performance and Berger’s visual poetry ensure this small player deals a memorable, if not entirely winning, hand.

Ballad of a Small Player had its Canadian Premiere at TIFF on September 9, 2025 and will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 9. The film will have a limited theatrical release in the U.S. on October 15 and in the U.K. & Ireland on October 17, and will be available to stream on Netflix from October 29, 2025.