DUBAI: German filmmaker Edward Berger’s 2022 take on “All Quiet on the Western Front” was a masterpiece, and his English-language debut, last year’s “Conclave,” was a nuanced, smart political thriller. There’s no doubting his talent.
However, “Ballad of a Small Player” is not on that level. While it’s a visual delight, reminiscent of Wes Anderson’s vividly realized worlds. But the unusual stylistic choices often seem forced — art for art’s sake. It’s not helped by Rowan Joffé’s screenplay, which fails to build on initial intrigue and ends up feeling thrown together.
Colin Farrell plays disgraced Irish financier Brendan Reilly, who’s fled the UK for Macau having stolen the life savings of a wealthy old woman who had invested with his firm. In Macau, Reilly has reinvented himself as Lord Doyle — an aristocratic playboy hoping that his apparent wealth and upper-class upbringing (neither of which Reilly actually possesses) will be enough to fool creditors into funding his gambling habit. And his drinking.
Farrell is convincing as a fraudster adrift in the luxurious loneliness of five-star suites — a man who clearly wants to try and be ‘good,’ but whose moral failings and lack of self-control (and self-awareness) keep sabotaging his attempts. As his debts mount, he meets Dao Ming, a credit broker with her own issues (and debts). When one of her clients commits suicide, Reilly comforts her, and promises that when his fortunes change, he will clear her debts too.
But his losing streak continues, and he is found by investigator Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton), who has been contracted by his former employers and gives him 24 hours to repay the funds he embezzled.
As Reilly spirals further into despair and stress he has a heart attack. As he loses consciousness, he sees Dao approach him, smiling. He wakes up in Dao’s house, where she nurses him back to health and they share their most intimate secrets.
Reilly’s fortunes then turn around dramatically, resulting in an improbable winning streak at the baccarat tables. And then the opportunity to completely change his life, and Dao’s, by staking it all on a single hand.
Berger builds the tension and claustrophobia of Reilly’s world well at first, but he’s the only character close to fully developed. Dao’s intriguing persona is wasted, and the gifted Swinton’s role is too cartoonish to convince. Ultimately, the movie fails to deliver on its promising first impressions.
