I recently had the opportunity to watch Colin Farrell’s latest film, The Ballad of a Small Player, and I liked it far more than any of the other reviewers that I could find online when the movie was done. I shall attempt to explain why here.

Also, fair warning, this discussion will have major spoilers for the film. Please do not proceed if you haven’t seen it yet.

Again, major spoilers ahead. Due diligence done.

First, for just a little bit of context if you haven’t seen it, the film is set in Macau, an exotic locale that I have never visited but the crowded and brightly lit casinos were quite familiar as I have been to Las Vegas. In some ways, the bright lights and lavish interiors of the rooms are beautiful and they are meant to be so in order to lure high rollers through their doors in order to take their money at the casinos.

Beauty and lavishness aside, I really don’t understand the draw of a place where day blends into night and back again while you gamble away the very thing that keeps a roof over your head and food in your mouth. But, I’m fortunate in that gambling isn’t one of my preferred vices.

We meet the protagonist of the film, Lord Doyle played by Farrell, as he’s waking up in one of these casinos. The room is a mess which suggests he’s been gambling for quite some time. It also leads the viewer to think, despite the evidence of high living, that Lord Doyle has not been successful. If he was, wouldn’t have he allowed the cleaning folks in to help him out?

The next few scenes continue this storyline with the bell boy at the front of the hotel encouraging Lord Doyle to visit another casino because they “may” be willing to extend the unfortunate gambler a line of credit which the current casino is declining to do. Lord Doyle is also given a short deadline to pay off a very major bill and threatened with legal action if he does not comply. It all adds to a growing feeling of pressure and dread which lasted throughout the film.

Thus, the stage is set for the rise and/or fall of our intrepid hero. I was completely drawn in by Lord Doyle’s desperate attempts to win money back and delay those who are looking to collect on old debts. From the cut of his brightly colored jacket to the yellow gloves on his shaking hands, Lord Doyle presented the picture of a well-to-do European on a holiday, whiling away his idle hours in luxury and excess.

The reality is actually quite different from this and the exploration of the differences of the image he’s presenting versus his reality are fascinating. I think all in existence present images of what we want the world to believe while hiding our true selves behind various masks. Why does Lord Doyle do this? Read on…

Enter Dao Ming, played by Fala Chen, a woman who offers lines of credit to struggling gamblers who don’t want the game to stop. Lord Doyle and Dao Ming have an awkward encounter where she offers him money if he pays off his bar tab, but he can’t, so the deal doesn’t go through. That’s when the film takes a major turn into another version of reality.

While walking through the streets of Macau, Lord Doyle describes himself as a “gweilo” or “ghost man” which, a little research on the internet has revealed, is a historical term used by locals to describe foreigners. The term has been called a racial slur and other times not, depending upon the context. In this film, Lord Doyle embraces the phrase and says he walks among the others of Macau like a shadow.

As soon as he said that, I realized the film wasn’t actually about gambling at all but about the deeper spiritual realities that we all exist in and move through whether we acknowledge them or not, like fish in water. Some claim that heaven or hell only enters our existence after death but I say we make our heaven and hell in the here and now. Lord Doyle lives in a hell that he created through his inability to walk away from the gambling tables and unshakeable belief that his luck is always about to change. He does indeed move through the world like a shadow, always on the move to find the money to make a new bet.

It is in this larger spiritual metaphor that The Ballad of a Small Player truly finds its footing. I could go on more about the role of Dao Ming in helping Lord Doyle rise from the depths of his created hell (or does he?) or the interesting role of Cynthia Blythe, played by Tilda Swinton, but I would prefer to stay in the realm of the metaphysical. Further discussion of the plot itself may be made at any of the other reviews floating out there in the ether.

The “naraka” or hells of the Buddhist world that get a brief mention in the film was fascinating to research. So, like Dante’s vision of hell, the narakas are layered with each successive layer being worse for the unfortunate residents of each. There are hot and cold narakas where the beings within experience various tortures based on the way they moved through life and the suffering they created through their existence. I think, with the multiple scenes of Lord Doyle being covered in sweat, that he lives in a hot naraka, suffering under the weight of his accumulated karma caused by his gambling addiction and those he harmed in his pursuit of it.

But which naraka it is is definitely up for discussion. In which realm do you think Lord Doyle finds himself? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)

I’m loathe to pick any of them except to say that Lord Doyle is wandering the earth as a “hungry ghost” or spirit who has an emptiness inside of him that he is always seeking to fill whether that be through winning at the gambling tables, plates of sumptuous food, dancing with the beautiful residents of the hell around him, or just existing in his own head.

It is eventually through this realization, that he has a wound that will never heal, that Lord Doyle finds his way out of the shadows of existence and back into the light of self knowledge and non-attachment.

Alive or dead, I believe all create their own reality. Lord Doyle tells himself throughout the movie that all he needs is for his luck to change and then he’ll be in control of his life again. But then, when his luck finally swings up, he finds himself feeling even more alone than he did before. In many ways, the movie suggests, he was alone the whole time.

Do the residents of hell know they are in hell? How about heaven?

Some have described the character of Lord Doyle as unrelatable or even repulsive for his repeated failures, his exposure as a fraud or for his physical body’s reactions to what is going on around him including uncontrollable sweat, endless hunger and thirst, and the never ending need to find money to gamble away. I think it is those failures that make the character absolutely relatable. Who among us has not fallen in some way throughout our lives and disappointed those around us? Who has a spirit made of stone who can take the stresses and disappointments of life without a hiccup or panic attack or sleepless night?

No one, that’s who.

And, at the end of the film, the one thing that pulls Lord Doyle out of hell is the redemptive act of returning the money he stole from Dao Ming. She gives him access to the treasure he needs to return to the gambling tables. She, it is suggested, stands behind him as a ghost and gives him the luck he needs to make those few big wins and leave the casinos behind forever. Even in hell, the film seems to say, there are those who will help you get out of your hopeless circumstances.

When he is informed that Dao Ming died days before his big win and he can therefore not return the money to her, Lord Doyle burns the money ritualistically at the temple to give her the cash back even beyond death, even though he is quite likely dead himself. Will this penitent action be enough to change his behavior for all time? The film is ambiguous about this possibility, but I’m ever hopeful for the best outcome for all. In my vision of what comes next, Lord Doyle leaves the casinos and the hell he has discovered/created, never to return because of the gift of a pathway out by another suffering member of the naraka.

I did a little research into hungry ghosts while I was gathering my thoughts about the film and stumbled onto the concept of “hell money“. The idea is that spirit money or false bills are burned to provide those in the afterlife with money to help them through whatever realm it is in which they may find themselves.

Curious custom. I wonder if the practice could possibly work the other way, with spirits burning whatever counts as cash over there for their living relatives on this side of the veil.

Hell money ruminations aside, The Ballad of a Small Player is an excellent examination of the suffering that can be created in one’s own life through attachment to material things which leads to a cycle of suffering perpetrated not only on the self but also on those around oneself. It is a finger pointing at the moon on the sad state of reality and the lost souls who inhabit it.

Highly recommended by movie-watchers who like to contemplate these types of themes. If you watch the film yourself, please do let me know your thoughts about it.

Thanks for reading. -Heidi

• The Ballad of a Small Player: a Metaphysical Movie Review
• Otherwhere: A Field Guide to Nonphysical Reality for the Out-Of-Body Traveler by Kurt Leland
• Psychic Dreamwalking: Explorations at the Edge of Self by Michelle Belanger
• Archetypes on the Tree of Life: The Tarot as Pathwork by Madonna Compton
• The Goddess and the Shaman: The Art & Science of Magical Healing by J.A. Kent