We’ve entered a new cinematic age of kink. Between the popularity of the Nicole Kidman-fronted Babygirl and now Pillion – already a critical hit at this year’s Cannes Film Festival – the world of BDSM has gotten a revamp. Kink has come out of the shadows, liberated from the catacombs of the human psyche. Less Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), more Secretary (2002).
Pillion is one of the sweetest, sexiest, and most tender films you’ll see all year. In Babygirl, Halina Reijn went for nervous, fumbling behaviour on both sides of a dominant-submissive relationship. Harry Lighton’s deeply self-assured debut instead casts Harry Melling as docile parking attendant Colin opposite Alexander Skarsgård's quietly commanding Ray, who introduces him into the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (real members of which also appear in the film alongside the actors).
There’s as much emphasis on community as there is on kink. As much bonding as there is bondage. A countryside camping weekend leads to both bonfire chitchats and a row of submissives laid out on picnic tables, prepped for a very different kind of intercourse.
What Lighton has achieved here is incredibly delicate, intuitive work, which never compromises on the story’s explicit nature or in the specificities of its subculture (on the advice of one of the GBMC members, one of the characters has a human pup persona, leather dog mask included).
Yet, the writer-director, loosely adapting Adam Mars-Jones’s Seventies-set novel Box Hill, also never scandalises what’s being shown on screen. Instead, what lies at Pillion’s heart is what lies at the heart of every relationship: the search for true compatibility, for an honest match of our own desires.
Colin, through Ray, discovers that he has what he calls “an aptitude for devotion”. At night, he curls up on the floor, at the foot of the bed. He wrestles in a leotard with a carefully cut-out ass window. He eats dinner leant against the living room wall, since the sofa is strictly reserved for Ray’s dog Rosie, whom he dotes on. It’s harmonious until it isn’t, and, while it’s easy to root for them as a couple, Colin and Ray need to first understand what they want for themselves.
None of this would work if Melling and Skarsgård weren’t able to tune their performances to a subatomic degree. Pillion is very funny, in parts – never because of the extremity of the sex acts, but because of the meekness with which Colin squeaks a heartfelt “Thank you” when Ray orders him to lick his boot.
Yet, Melling also understands that submissiveness doesn’t equate to total passivity. He makes sure to show us Colin’s pleasure, his desire, and, when necessary, his frustration. He’s long been a great actor, but this is a role that really shows us his mettle. Skarsgård, too, drifting in on a six-pack Hollywood breeze, seems a little comically out of place standing outside Primark in Bromley. But he takes great care to ensure that while Ray is severe, at times even cold, he is never cruel. And, when it matters most, his features melt like butter.
While Colin’s parents (Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp) are a source of conflict, it’s never out of homophobia or even inherent disgust at BDSM, but a more complex fear about consent. Ray bites back: “It’s not for you to decide that what makes you uncomfortable is bad for your son.” The same could be said to anyone who might approach Pillion with an eye to ridicule or debase.
Dir: Harry Lighton. Starring: Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharp, Jake Shears. Cert 18, 107 mins
