I’m getting distinct Leaving Las Vegas vibes from this trailer for Edward Berger‘s Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix, 10.15). Honestly? I’m not looking forward to this.
Would I rather re-watch Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray‘s Macao? Yes.
From Gerard Woodward‘s 4.26.14 Guardian review or Lawrence Osborne’s “Ballad of a Small Player“:
“The son of a vacuum cleaner salesman from Croydon, Lord Doyle has more reason than most to want to shed his wealth. It is loaded with the guilt of ill-gotten gains.
“As a lawyer back in England, he fleeced an elderly widow; now he has fled the country, hiding out in Macau, mainland China’s Las Vegas, across the bay from Hong Kong. The casinos he inhabits resemble fantasy versions of the European culture he has deserted, with names such as The Greek Mythology and The Mona Lisa: schmaltzy, sham palaces as tinselled as anything in Nevada.
“His game of choice is punto banco baccarat, ‘that slutty, dirty queen of casino card games’. It is the game Bond plays in Casino Royale (though in the film it was replaced with poker), the game of instant death, the guillotine. It is a game of no skill or strategy, the card-game equivalent of tossing a coin. The only hope the punter has is in the timing and pacing of his bets. But Doyle cares little for winning or losing. His life seems given over to the laws of chance, as though he were trying to gamble himself out of existence.
“The beauty of this novel is in the elegance and precision of its prose, which renders the glaring kitsch of Macau into a series of exquisite miniatures, and draws on Osborne’s reserves as a travel writer. The problem is that, apart from Doyle himself, there is no one else in the novel of much interest — the casino staff, the expat colleagues, the remembered family and friends back home: none of them comes to life with any conviction. The story itself begins to feel as though it is on a loop as the money comes and goes.
“Even when Doyle carries his winnings to his room in seven suitcases stuffed with cash, that isn’t the end of it, and one tends to lose interest in how many times Doyle goes from bankruptcy to riches and back again.”