The premise of Pillion alone should be enough to sell you on it. Harry Melling (whose breakout role was playing repugnant brat Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter franchise) plays Colin, a sweet but drippy young man who gets swept off his feet by Alexander Skarsgård’s Ray, a sexy and mysterious member of a gay BDSM biker club. It’s a window into a fetish subculture with lots of outré sex, but at its core it’s a sweet, funny queer coming of age story. Just with, like, more cum.
It’s also a sublime piece of art. It’s outrageous that director Harry Lighton, 32, has made such an assured directorial debut. It’s already scooped him a BFI & Chanel Filmmaker Award, with the jury calling him an “exciting new filmmaking voice”. The hype, in this case, is earned.
Melling’s Colin is a hilariously awkward ingenue. A traffic warden without a driving license, he lives a small suburban life with his parents, only really getting out of the house to hand out parking tickets and perform in a barbershop quartet with his dad and brother. His family are entirely accepting of his sexuality, with a smothering desire to set him up with another nice young man. Instead, a Christmas musical revue in a pub frequented by leather daddies puts him in the sights of Ray, who immediately puts Colin to a test of submission over a packet of crisps. It’s very hot, and it’s very funny.
Colin is a passenger in his own life, and Ray has a pillion seat with his name on it. Ray could obviously get any cute subby twink he desires, but in Colin he sees the opportunity to unlock something special: “an aptitude for devotion”.
If Colin had a theme song, it would be I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges; he positively vibrates with a puppyish need to please, to lose himself entirely in the subspace of serving a master. So Ray immediately sets to schooling Colin in a full lifestyle D/s (dominant/submissive) arrangement. Colin does the cooking and the cleaning and sleeps curled on the floor at the foot of Ray’s bed. If he’s good, they do some sexy wrestling. It’s an arrangement that suits both men perfectly, satisfying Colin’s need for direction and Ray’s need for... something. Control, maybe?
Skarsgård is at the top of his game here, and he guards Ray’s depths with a haunted look. You immediately understand he’s not in the biker club for the homoerotic camaraderie so much as the strict ritual and rules. He can only offer limited care and affection when there are impassable boundaries. Colin may let him shave his head, dress him in expensive leathers and lock a padlocked collar around his neck, but it’s Ray who locks up his own heart.
He’s not terribly sadistic, either; although he wants to dominate Colin entirely, he doesn’t want to hurt him. The chemistry between Skarsgård and Melling sizzles the most when it comes to their hilariously fumbling interactions. Lighton clearly understands that sex is also very funny, and orgies require a lot of admin. Intimacy coordinator Robbie Taylor had his work cut out for him with Pillion.
Honestly, there’s an entire comedy short in the administrative parts of Ray’s sex machinations. How early does he wake before Colin to set his alarm and prep his cleaning supplies plus honey-do list for the day? How much time must he devote to scouting out dramatically lit cruising spots to get Colin on his knees in? Where exactly did he get hold of that assless wrestling suit? Who dog sits his sweet Rottweiler, Rosie, while he’s away on biker gang camping trips where the subs arrange themselves for an ass-out breakfast buffet?
I’d also pay good money to see the original cut. Sadly, Lighton left some of the more explicit shots on the cutting room floor. "There's definitely a raunchier version of this movie,” Skarsgård joked to Variety, insisting this is “the family friendly version”. Give us the Skarsgård cut! Although it’s probably for the best the audience is only teased with some careful shots of an impressive prosthetic getting unzipped (Ray may not have any visible piercings, but he’s gone all out on one specific one).
Eventually, Colin’s newly awoken appetites leave him wanting more — ideally a day off from being a 24/7 submissive. Ray, like Julia Roberts’ Vivian in Pretty Woman, has a strict no-kissing rule. Where other doms in the biker club affectionately pet and scruff their subs, Colin is rarely even allowed on the furniture. He’s also under increasing pressure from his family, who are distrustful of Ray and their dynamic. While they’re cool with a gay son, it’s understandably impossible for Colin to explain the true nature of his kinky relationship over family dinners. Also, Colin’s mother is dying of cancer, and her desperation to see her son happily settled only pushes him further into his unrequited love affair.
Lighton adapted his screenplay from Box Hill, the slim heartbreaking 2020 novel by gay literature icon Adam Mars-Jones. While he’s retained the bones of the story — a dominant/submissive relationship between a biker and a not-so-conventionally attractive younger man — there are crucial changes that change the nature of the story entirely. For one, it’s not a 1970s period piece. By setting it in the modern day, Pillion isn’t dealing with the danger of closeted interactions between gay men in the run-up to the Aids crisis. There’s no crisis of coming out for any of the characters, and nary a whiff of homophobia, which is frankly a relief in the current climate. And the central relationship is not an abusive one. While the brass tacks negotiations of their dynamic happen off screen, Colin is clearly consenting with great gusto.
This is also a relief. If Pillion gets the attention it deserves, the queer community doesn’t need another round of discourse about kink at Pride. Instead, the film asks universal questions about love. Is that the whole point, or is mutual devotion enough? How much of yourself should you give to a partner? It’s a good thing Lighton kept the motorbikes. Pillion is a love letter to the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (GBMCC), whose members star in the film and give it authenticity and a rare window into a carefully guarded subculture. It’s also chance to enjoy lots of lingering slow motion shots of Colin clutching onto Ray while restoring my faith in a perfect needledrop. When Bad Feeling by Cobra Man revs up it’s ecstatic.
Sometimes it feels good to be bad, and being wrong feels right. Pillion is a wild ride, but one that’s rewarding to submit yourself to entirely.
Pillion is in cinemas from 28 November
