Olivia O'Ríada straps up for her review of Pillion.
Queerness on screen, and in life, looks almighty different from how it might have in decades past. A culture once built, by necessity, on anonymous sex and kink-based community is now palatable and mainstreamed. A sanitised image of it can be innocuously placed in the advertising campaign of a bank, assuring you that gay people can get mortgages too. Where once you might have had to worry about hiding your sexuality from your parents, now you might worry that they are too eager for you to get out there and meet someone. This is where we meet Colin (Harry Melling) in Harry Lighton’s debut, the 24/7 BDSM rom-com (with a splash of rom-dram) Pillion.
After a Christmas gig for his barbershop quartet, Colin has an uninspiring date with a man his mother has picked out for him. However, as his attention wanders he makes a connection with Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a towering leather-clad biker who asks him to meet on Christmas Day. Colin finishes his Christmas dinner, and the whole family cheers him on as he heads out to walk his very small dog and meet his mystery man, set against the sterile backdrop of a deserted English high street. They tie Colin’s dog and Ray’s rottweiler to a fence around a city council Christmas tree. Then, of course, with nary a word to say, immediately partake in some oral sex in an alley behind a Primark.
Meling fantastically embodies a particular brand of sheltered young gay person in the film’s early stages, someone for whom their sexuality has been more theoretical than practical, while Skarsgård effortlessly and broodingly towers over him as if from another species entirely. How could the presence of this man not break his world in two? The two go their separate ways after Christmas, but Colin continues to desperately pine for Ray over the following months, listlessly going about his mundane job as a parking warden and texting him to see when he will be back in town. When he eventually gets a yes, he arrives at Ray’s apartment and is coldly given a list of dinner requirements. His coat does not get to go on a hanger. He has to sleep on the floor instead of the bed. Colin is smitten.
The film uses its setting to great effect, the mundanity of British urban design standing in for a mainstreamed modern queer culture, contrasted with the outrageous public sex outings Colin is whisked away to by Ray’s biker club. As Colin tries to drag Ray into the normality of the high street, the characterless chain restaurants, the pre-packaged supermarket-branded sandwiches and the soft-carpeted multiplex cinemas, Ray brings Colin into the forest to have less-than-monogamous gay sex in a big group of men who are either wearing a lot of leather or nothing at all.
The film obviously needs to showcase this sex to demonstrate the value of the relationship to the two men since it lacks a more standard emotional component, and it does not shy away. Whether it is the aforementioned power games in the bushes or wrestling in assless leotards, the film doles out a healthy serving of unsanitised kinky sex without treating it too salaciously. There is a matter-of-fact presentation to these acts of obscene intimacy that is refreshing to see depicted on screen. Talking to Variety, Lighton discussed that a lot of the film’s sex still ended up on the cutting room floor, “It was purely because I didn’t want to push the audience into feeling they were being deliberately shocked by an image,” and that shows in the final film. It walks a fine line of good taste without feeling like it is shying away from a crucial aspect of the story. Lighton has also discussed concerns that the film will need to be further cut to make the cut for an ‘R’ rating when the film, a UK/Ireland co-production, is released by A24 in the US early next year, expressing concern that ejaculation was going to be a sticking point for the stateside ratings board. “Apparently that’s what pushes you over the edge!” Skarsgård has fallen into this trap before, as in 2023 his starring role in Brandon Cronenberg’s Canadian-produced psychosexual horror Infinity Pool was similarly slapped with an ‘X’ rating in the US for a scene featuring such fluids while being released uncut as an 18 in both Ireland and the UK. It begs the question of how an increasingly conservative American market will affect the content and attitudes of productions from the rest of the Anglosphere. Do Irish films end up overly beholden to American cultural interests in the process of trying to chase international money? Or will you simply cut out a two-second shot of some bodily fluids from your gay BDSM comedy or psychosexual horror and go about your day?
As Pillion winds up to its climax, it enters a more dramatic mode with deft handling. The relationship breaks at the limits of its performed lack of affection. The more playful tone of the film’s earlier scenes gives way to an abject sadness and a drained colour palette, while Harry Melling’s big blue eyes evoke a wounded puppy with seemingly great ease. Harry Lighton’s self-assured debut offers laughs and tears in equal measure while managing to slip some salient points about modern queer culture in through the process.
Pillion is in cinemas 28th November 2025.
