Edward Berger adapts Lawrence Osborne’s novel into a sumptuous fever dream of gambling and self destruction. Colin Farrell plays Lord Doyle, a disgraced lawyer hiding in Macau, burning through borrowed money and false identities. Farrell captures Doyle’s bravado and decay, his charm masking deepening desperation. Tilda Swinton appears as a mysterious confidant, her presence spectral, while Fala Chen embodies the allure and danger of Doyle’s surroundings. Berger and cinematographer James Friend shoot Macau as a neon labyrinth, equal parts intoxicating and suffocating. Every casino feels like both cathedral and trap, a place where fortune and ruin blur.
Farrell’s performance is magnetic, pulling viewers into Doyle’s spiral without apology. Ballad of a Small Player is not about winning but about the slow, inevitable collapse of a man who believes he can outplay fate. It is stylish, unsettling, and deeply human, a portrait of obsession that lingers like smoke in the lungs.
Ballad of a Small Player is playing at TIFF ’25. For more information, click here.
