Rating: R | Runtime: 101 minutes
Release Date: October 15th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Director(s): Edward Berger
Writer(s): Rowan Joffe / Lawrence Osborne (novel)

How bout dinner and a dance?

Manic pixie dream girls really can change your life. I just wish the whole propped up its comic energy higher than its redemptive sincerity (stay for the end credits to witness “the dance”) since the cast proves itself game for the absurdity inherent to miracles, ghosts, and luck.

If so, the silliness of presenting Lord Doyle’s eleventh hour revelation as though we should also be surprised would have hit as intentional rather than begging us to ask, “Did Edward Berger really not know his direction and sound design already told us everything an hour prior?”

The way Colin Farrell mangles those cards to the point of being unusable every single hand is extremely satisfying. Big mouths. Small necks. Can’t lose.

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Colin Farrell in BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER; courtesy of Netflix.