Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
As the biggest Conclaviac (that’s a fan of director Edward Berger’s movie Conclave) around, I was always seated for Berger’s next movie before it had even been filmed. Now I’ve seen Ballad of a Small Player, it’s clear that it was never going to live up to the hype.
Really, we’re wrong to pit the new Netflix movie against Berger’s previous work (which includes All Quiet on the Western Front), yet it’s inevitable. Each of his last three projects exist in their own right, not sharing any characteristics outside of Berger’s outstanding personal vision.
If you’re coming to Ballad of a Small Player hoping for cinematography that will blow your mind, you’re in the right place. If you’re hoping Colin Farrell bares his acting soul in the portrait of a tortured gambler at war with his addiction, he charmingly delivers.
The downside is that the movie suffers from the classic problem of waning at the two-third mark – in a nutshell, the fatal moment where you’re itching for things to wrap up and draw their conclusion, checking your watch in the process.
But besides this, I fell in love with Berger’s end goal, flaws and all. While I wonder if being streamed on Netflix does the film’s artistry a disservice, we should be thanking out lucky stars for such immediate access to thoughtful, quality craft
Ballad of a Small Player’s visuals are the real star of the show
Macau is a city where, by Berger and his team’s own admission, is unlike anywhere else in the world. A beast with two distinctly different identities, it’s the perfect place to reflect big-time gambler Lord Doyle’s (Farrell) inner demons, struggling to get himself out of a hole he makes deeper with every decision.
Without giving too much away, he’s a man who owes a lot of people money (or has flat-out stolen it), spending anything he has left on the next game of Baccarat. When Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton) begins to tail him for the life he’s left behind, Doyle turns to Dao Ming (Fala Chen) in his hour of need. What follows is the ultimate test of his character.
Where there are big-scale locations like Macau and Hong Kong, there’s big-scale vision. Doyle is accurately reflected as the flea in a circus of lights and power that he is, lost in an environment he’s tricked himself into thinking he understands.
That’s bad news for Doyle but excellent news for viewers, who’ll be entranced by visuals that’ll leave their eyes blaze in wonder, like a child seeing light for the first time. We see repetitions of Conclave‘s cinematic framing, meaning you can easily pause Ballad of a Small Player from time to time and find a freeze frame worthy of gallery installation.
In this respect, Berger is playful. Light plays against dark, overwhelm contrasts against stillness and chaos manifests under many different guises. As far as artistry is concerned, both he and the movie are at the top of their game.
Should Ballad of a Small Player have been picked up by Netflix?
Obviously, there are very few films in existence that are objectively flawless, and Ballad of a Small Player comes with its issues. Fans of the original 2014 novel of the same name might be horrified to realize quite a few key details have changed.
For example, Dao Ming is now directly tied to the Rainbow casino thanks to a switch in occupation, and Swinton’s character has been entirely invented for the adaptation. Subjectively, I have a separate gripe here – a film without Swinton in every conceivable shot is one that doesn’t have enough seasoning, offering up yet another chameleonic performance that stands uniquely on its own two feet.
But even if you’re okay with the above, you’ll likely feel the dreaded narrative lag that hits around the two-thirds mark. It was almost a given considering how much mental anguish Doyle puts himself though (which the storyline relies on), but we find ourselves frustrated with his lack of personal progress. It comes in the blink of an eye towards the end of the movie, making the journey from zero to hero unconvincingly rushed rather than thoughtfully mapped out.
Most importantly, though, Ballad of a Small Player being a Netflix release doesn’t feel like the right fit, and that’s for two reasons. The advantage of its stylistic visuals means it needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, and I fear the average living room TV won’t do the scale of what’s been achieved true justice.
On top of this, the movie is going up against huge Netflix releases like Knives Out 3 and Frankenstein within weeks of each other. Out of all originals movies dropping on the streaming service, I think Ballad of a Small Player is the most likely to be glossed over (if for no other reason, purely because it’s the smallest IP).
As Netflix hits its fall of back-to-back movie stride, my plea to you is to not overlook this one when it arrives on October 29. Granted, it’s no Conclave, but what Ballad of a Small Player lacks in narrative nous it more than makes up for in cinematic scope, taking us to locations and circumstances we cannot access in reality.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.
