Breaking Down the Three Act Structure of Ballad of a Small Player

Into the catalogue of films about gambling drops the highly-stylistic Ballad of a Small Player, a movie that explores addiction and merges existential dread with ghosts of the past. Starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton, the film offers a mesmerising if at times harrowing glimpse into the lavishly decadent world of Macau–known as the Las Vegas of the East.

What makes this film particularly interesting for screenwriters is that it clearly follows a conventional three act structure. It's worth analysing the narrative scaffolding that holds the plot, pacing and theme in place.

Breaking Down the Three Act Structure & Turning Points of the Film

*Contains spoilers!

Act One and The Inciting Incident

Successfully combining mystery elements with darkly funny moments, the film quickly draws us in to follow the lead character, Lord Doyle (impressively portrayed by Farrell), a gambler on a downward spiral of bad luck.

The inciting incident / Turning Point 1 is clocked at roughly six minutes into the film. Lord Doyle is given an ultimatum by the manager of the hotel he's staying at: settle his bill (of over 300,000 Hong Kong dollars) in three days or else the police will be notified.

An expert at deception, Doyle is an addict stringing people along with lies, trotting out well-worn lines ("How about a dance?") while desperately hoping to catch a break.

Convinced he's on the cusp of another winning streak, Doyle befriends a mysterious credit broker, Dao Ming, in one of the last casinos that hasn't yet banned him. But it's here that the story takes an unpredictable turn when Doyle witnesses another gambler's suicide. Although it's clear that Doyle is hoping to get a credit line from Dao, the impact of the gambler's death does create a bond of vulnerability between the two. On a beach away from the city, the pair watch the fireworks celebrating the opening of the Hungry Ghost celebrations.

Turning point 2 is at the end of the first act: Doyle wakes up on the beach alone the next day. Dao Ming is nowhere to be found.

Act Two

Things continue to get messier for Doyle (as they should for any main character in act two) when his past catches up with him in the form of Tilda Swinton.

Cynthia Blythe (played by Swinton) is a pedantic if slightly odd British woman who's been sent to Macau to locate Doyle. Turns out Lord Doyle is really just a working class Irish lad named Brendon Reilly who's embezzled nearly a million pounds from an investment client. Cynthia gives him a day to cough up the money or he'll be deported to stand trial in the U.K.

Reilly is a small player, teetering on the precipice of an all is lost moment while the ongoing Hungry Ghost celebrations add thematically and tonally to the overall atmosphere of dread.

The Midpoint

Turning point 3: Fleeing his multiple debts and run of bad luck, Reilly arrives in Hong Kong. He experiences his rock bottom moment in the form of a health scare when he collapses in the middle of a hotel restaurant, having consumed multiple courses with no way of paying.

But it's a moment tinged with a sense of hope as Dao Ming appears to rescue him, taking him to her floating home on Lamma Island. Will Reilly have the strength to turn his life around and beat the gambling addiction? It's not quite time for that at the half-way point. There's still more temptation that Reilly must first face in the form of bags of cash hidden under water at Dao Ming's place.

Unable to resist, Reilly is propelled back to his old ways, but this time lady luck is on his side. Or is there something else, a supernatural force at play here? As Reilly again seems on the brink of implosion, devouring food but never satiated (just like a hungry ghost) he calls the casino and tells them he's going to stake all the money he's won (8 million HKD) on a single bet.

This is turning point 4 at the end of act two.

Climax and Act Three

To have such a massive wager–and the climax of the entire film (turning point 5)–set against the faceless casino would never do. So, another high-roller is brought in to sit across the baccarat table from Reilly. The stakes are thus raised even further: the man is a fellow expat/con man (posing as an Italian prince) who matches Reilly's bet. After a few tense moments, it's revealed that Reilly, despite the statistical improbabilty, has won yet again. He repays Blythe and departs.

A final moment of temptation arrives when Reilly, looking for Dao Ming, strides into the casino where they originally met. Although he's asked again to play against the foul-mouthed Grandma, Reilly refuses. In a final twist, Grandma reveals that Dao Ming drowned herself on that first night of the Hungary Ghost celebrations.

Realising that his experiences with Dao from that point on were hallucinations, Reilly remains adament that he's done with gambling, leaving behind his lucky gloves to prove it. He goes back to the temple he'd visited with Dao before she died and proceeds to burn all the remaining money as an offering.

Use of Local Customs to Portray a Universal Theme

The story is particularly successful in the way it weaves the concept of the Hungry Ghost Festival into not only a plot device but also a metaphor describing the nature of addiction; a beast that is never satisfied.

The festival is celebrated during the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar when, as the story goes, the gates of hell burst open, allowing ghosts to cross over from the world of the dead. It's a time to commemorate those who have passed and appease the spirits hungry for vengeance.

Ending of Ballad of a Small Player Explained

At the end of the film, once Reilly has learnt of Dao's death and finally conquered his addiction, he makes the ultimate sacrifice. By throwing his winnings into the temple's flames, he's not only venerating Dao, but finally appeasing the ghosts of his own trauma. The burning of the money forges a path of redemption, allowing Reilly to move to a different existence as we watch him dissolve into the mists on the beach.

The film was directed by Edward Berger (Patrick Melrose, All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave). The screenplay was written by Rowan Joffé, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne.

Story Inkubator was founded by writer, scriptwriter and teacher, Kristina Jilly, an Australian living in Central Europe who's written for HBO Europe and RTL Television. A teacher at the University of Applied Sciences in Upper Austria, Kristina also writes online content about the art of storytelling and topics that inspire creativity. 

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