Ballad of a Player | Cinema on Stage

Directed by Edward Berger. Screenplay by Rowan Joffe. Com: Colin Farrell, Fala Chen, Tilda Swinton, Deanie Ip, Alex Jennings, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong.

Ballad of a Playernew work by German Edward Berger (Conclave, Nothing New on the Front), is a film of visual excesses and thematic confusion: after establishing the aesthetics and logic of a neon-black by combining the seminal gambling drive of Bob the Gambler and the lights of Macau, the filmmaker starts to invest in a narrative with metaphysical tones with the aim of creating a parable about… what? The inhumanity of capitalism? The beauty of tradition in the face of modern ferocity? Colonialism? Here and there, Rowan Joffe’s script seems to flirt with all these ideas and abandon them as soon as another concern presents itself – and as I haven’t read Lawrence Osborne’s original book, I can’t say whether the dilution of these discussions is a mistake in the adaptation or if it comes from the original material.

What do I could anticipate from the first shot of the film is that you would soon hear a narration in offas the presentation of the protagonist waking up in his hotel room practically screamed this approach; on the other hand, the fact that the production immediately discarded it is an oversight that surprised me even after having noticed the work’s general lack of cohesion.

Played by Colin Farrell with an intensity that almost leads the viewer to ignore the creative chaos around him, Lord Doyle is a compulsive gambler who, for reasons that are slowly revealed, finds himself hiding in Macau – with results similar to what we would observe if an alcoholic stayed in a cachaça factory. The comparison, in fact, becomes even more appropriate when we notice how, similar to an addict who hides bottles of alcohol around the house, Doyle keeps rolls of money spread around the room and notes hidden in his sock. Trying to keep persona of a successful gambler who is dismantled as soon as we notice the hesitation in his gaze and the tremor of his hands, the guy represents the type of character to which Farrell is recurrently attracted: anxious and guilt-ridden men who only do not seek redemption because they deem it impossible.

With the constant tension highlighted by the wide-angle lenses used in close-up shots and the insistence on recording every drop of sweat and every pore on the protagonist’s face, director of photography James Friend creates a palette full of intense colors that only weaken when in competition with the fluorescent lights that drain their vivacity and project a sickly tone over Doyle and the environments he occupies. Oscillating between romantic melancholy and realistic rawness only when jumping from night to day (as in the scene on a wooden platform in which Doyle falls asleep in front of the stars and the sea and wakes up surrounded by mud), Ballad of a Player constantly oppresses its antihero, either by focusing on him in diving (high angle) that reduce it, either by employing counter-dives (low angle) that highlight the size of the buildings that surround it.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Houlding’s art direction explores the contrast between the luxury of casinos and hotels, with their decadent elegance (or tackiness that aspires to sophistication), and the precariousness of humbler regions, which feature dozens of tiny apartments crowded around a claustrophobic courtyard. Volker Bertelmann’s score invests in constant bombardment, giving peace to the viewer’s hearing only when the sound design opts for noises whose symbolism needs to be hammered home without any subtlety (note, for example, the moments in which the creaking of the wood of the floating huts takes over the mix).

Unfortunately, all the attention given to the visual aspects of the production proves to be at the service of a narrative that shoots everywhere in search of importance: here, a secondary character discusses the “ferocity of the English elite” and how it is “immune to shame”; there, another points out how proletarian origin should unite two adversaries; There, old orientalism appears through a powerful subject – played by Anthony Wong – who suggests the belief in mysticism traditionally (read: based on racism) attributed to Asians by European and North American productions. At the same time, Berger abandons any trace of humanity in the protagonist by forcing him to behave in an increasingly extreme and caricatural way, equating his addiction to games with any other drive that can be framed as a manifestation of greed – and, thus, whenever he is prevented from betting, Doyle indulges in unrestrained eating, complete with sound effects and framing that make him animalistic.

This, of course, also opens up space for images that flirt with horror and the supernatural – aspects introduced abruptly in the middle of the projection and which, using another simplistic convention (that of the female character who exists only to help the protagonist achieve some redemption), transforms the figure played by Fala Chen into a mere script device. To make matters worse, the film treats a certain glaringly obvious aspect of the plot as if it were a big secret, betting the strength of its climax on a “revelation” (with the right to flashbacks expository) that only surprised me when I realized that the protagonist had not yet realized what was happening.

Ending the narrative with one of those empty gestures that beg us to interpret them as meaningful when they are merely absurd (and even offensive), Ballad of a Player wastes Farrell’s talent and charisma, establishing himself as just a pale shadow of works like The Player, Incredible Obsession, Uncut Gems and, of course, the already mentioned Bob the Gambler.

November 3, 2025

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