Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER [Toronto International Film Festival 2025 - Toronto, Canada]

The progression of psychosis usually has to do with the experience of the one living it. With "Ballad Of A Small Player" [Special Presentations], the path follows a man named Lord Doyle who seems based in a thought of his own self-fulfilled intent or a simply spiraling addition. The film takes place in Macao which is an interesting play since many have never seen just how interesting that place can be. The film is produced by Mike Goodridge who used to be the Exec Director of the Macao International Film Festival which was in existence before the pandemic (this critic attended a few times). What the film does is capture the feeling of the place (both the quiet and the excessive). While the Portuguese elements of the city are less shown as well as the different sociological aspects, the story is not about that but more of an outsider trying to find something that he can't get somewhere else...and be a big shot.

The film is based upon a novel and is adapted by Rowan Joffe. Mostly in certain ways, it is a stylistic exercise of one man's specific decent into hell, even though he mostly thinks it is heaven. He is searching for that big score when his whole life seems one continuous string of bad luck. When he is on a high, you can feel it. This is due to two things: the sweeping interior camera moves that Berger and his DP implement when he is in a high but also the score by Volker Bertelmann which in those moments are absolutely riveting if not overplayed...but in the Q&A Bertelmann did explain the reason why which makes a lot of sense. The performance by Farrell is extreme in its play as if the character doesn't realize how deep he is going. But that is almost based in the fact that he might be caught in a fever dream where he might not even be alive. He has a mentor that tempts him in Alex Jennings who might be Lucifer in a way in that he can become many different things. Fala Chen plays an executive at the casino who might herself be on the redemptive side of what has happened before and might happen again. The movie is a beautiful parallel in certain respects to Dante's Inferno but without any need to be anything more than what you see on the screen.

One could speak to "Fear & Loathing" but this is more just self loathing as Farrell tries to ingest and excess the character in these grand suites where everything seems empty no matter how much he has. But many times it is just himself which is telling. Tilda Swinton plays a mousy investigator who seems out of place...yet she is trying to redeem him and is also slightly intrigued by him as perhaps Gabriel would be. The film is of course a redemtpive story in a certain way and there is a spiritual context of ghosts attached to those who can't escape. This is an interesting choice for Farrell considering his wild times in his 20s versus where he is now and some of the roles he is choosing. The context of saving oneself is an interesting diatribe. Director Berger again chooses an intriguing subject, which he said in the Q&A was moving full circle from "Conclave"...and yet that said there is a throughline of path and what road is taken. It knows what it is and also shows Netflix willing to take a change...and yet seeing the casinos and the music on the big screen in the Princess Of Wales does make a difference. A-

By Tim Wassberg