Producers: Emma Norton, Lee Groombridge, Andrew Lowe and Ed Guiney Director: Harry Lighton Screenplay: Harry Lighton Cast: Alexander Skarsgård , Harry Melling, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharp, Jake Shears, Anthony Welsh, Matt Hill, Nick Figgis, Zoe Engenrer, Jake Sharp, Jacob Carter, Cristina Carty, Zamir Mesiti, Rosie Sheehy, Miranda Bell and Monica Purcell Distributor: A24
Grade: B
Though it’s been described as a romantic comedy, “Pillion,” adapted rather loosely by writer-director Harry Lighton from Adam Mars-Jones’s 2020 novel “Box Hill,” is actually more a BDSM gay romantic tearjerker. It’s edgy by reason of the BDSM element, which provides the gritty context for the relationship between Colin (Harry Melling) and Ray (Alexander Skarsgård). But if one removes that from the narrative, especially if one also jettisons the gay aspect, it would be an old-fashioned weepie. Not a terrible one, mind you, but surprisingly ordinary, though with some wryly humorous notes.
We meet Colin—played by Melling with the quiet, sad-sack manner of a silent screen clown (think Stan Laurel or Harry Langdon), a traffic officer who performs on the side with his dad Pete (Douglas Hodge) in a barbershop quartet in a local London pub. (He has a nice tenor voice.) When he passes the hat around for tips from the customers, Ray doesn’t even look up from his table. But later when Colin is at the bar, Ray appears beside him and, with a simple wordless nod, directs him to pay for his purchase, and when he complies, invites him to meet him next evening in the street, where he instructs Colin to get down on his knees and service him. Colin does so, and Ray rides off on his motorbike.
That’s the beginning of their BDSM relationship. Colin has until now lived at home with Pete and his mum Peggy (Lesley Sharp), who’s suffering from terminal cancer. They know full well that he’s gay, and have hoped that he’d find a boyfriend. But when he leaves to live with Ray, he’s so much changed that Peg, in particular, is furious: she lets loose on Ray over his treatment of her boy during a dinner she’s insisted on hosting in order to get to know him. Pete, on the other hand, is remarkably stoic about it.
Most mothers would react similarly on seeing their son told to shave their curly locks in favor of a buzz cut, wear a padlocked chain around their necks and accept a life of virtual servitude, ready to provide not only sexual service but to engage in wrestling tussles, though the level of competition might be negligible, and to perform the household chores while sleeping on the floor beside the dominant partner’s bed like a docile dog. (Ray’s rottweiler gets to sit beside its master on the couch.)
Most viewers will find the relationship unsettling, but it’s no more so than the instances in many films and real life in which women allow themselves to be similarly used and abused by men. And as presented here it’s not unique: Ray’s part of a gay BDSM biker club (a pillion is the back seat on a bike, a position symbolic of submission) that goes on picnics together, during which the dominants might further humiliate their partners by switching them for others more able to fill their immediate needs, as Ray does by taking Kevin (Jake Shears) as a stronger colleague in a mock water fight and then as the submissive he chooses for post-match sexual action.
Over time, however, Colin begins to desire a bit more than Ray’s rigidly enforced set of rules. He wants to sleep in bed with Ray, for instance, and even suggests that occasionally—one day each week, perhaps—they act like a more conventional couple, going out together and exhibiting regular acts of affection. When Ray curtly rejects the idea, Colin rebels in a way that offends Ray’s obsessive care for his motorcycle, an item he appears to cherish far more than Colin.
But instead of reacting by ratcheting up his demands, Ray accedes to Colin’s. They go into the city for the day, taking in a movie (from which they’re ejected for conduct unbecoming), lunching together and interacting genially with a couple of elderly ladies they encounter on an outdoor bench.
Has the relationship reached a turning point? Yes, but not in the way Colin hopes. Yet paradoxically, as challenging to Colin as his time with Ray has been, it’s revealed to him the life he desires, and though it might not be with Ray, it’s what he chooses without him.
Many reviewers will find what’s portrayed in “Pillion” uncomfortable to watch, just as they’d be upset by the far more frequent stories of women living under the thumbs of husbands or boyfriends–but more so for the BDSM context. Yet in his screenplay and direction Lighton brings surprisingly sweet undercurrents to the picture.
In achieving this he’s helped immeasurably by his leads. Skarsgård looks like a Greek god with stubble whatever his state of dress (though especially when in his motorcycle outfit), but he’s certainly not a brute—he’s constantly reading, and even plays a bit of piano (the ever-popular Satie). And he brings suggestions of regret and pain lying beneath Ray’s seemingly imperturbable exterior without disturbing the enigmatic element that prevails to the very end. Colin is a more open, emotional character, but for many he will be equally hard to understand, and Melling is extraordinarily successful in eliciting sympathy first as a perhaps inexplicably willing doormat and then as someone determined to demand a few tweaks to the formula. Hodge and Sharp provide pitch-perfect support, each savoring their big moments, and Shears offers a brief turn that serves as both complement and contrast to Melling’s.
This is technically a polished piece of work, with a production design by Francesca Massariot that features absolutely right-on interiors and costumes by Grace Snell that are utterly characterful, in the best sense. Nick Morris’ cinematography is expert and Gareth C. Scales’s editing smooth, while Oliver Coates’s score doesn’t overplay its hand.
It’s as difficult to categorize “Pillion” as it is to fully understand its central relationship from the outside. But Lighton and his stars enable outsiders to experience a slice of society they’ve perhaps never encountered not only without sensationalizing it, but in a spirit of simple human empathy.