Two Cents: Pillion (Harry Lighton)
Alexander Skarsgård as Ray and Harry Melling as Colin in Pillion.
Imagine being 33 years old and, in your directorial debut, telling Alexander Skarsgård the exact speed by which to pull down that long, long zip of his leather body suit. And then imagine having that first feature win Best Screenplay at Cannes. Harry Lighton knows how to make an entrance.
Surprisingly funny, tender, yet unflinchingly erotic, Pillion is a BDSM-style bildungsroman, in which an unassuming young a capella singer from Bromley called Colin learns of his ‘aptitude for devotion’ through a brief yet life-altering relationship with biker dom Ray. Physically exceptional in every way (Alexander Skarsgård, naturally), intractably mysterious, and with a vocabulary mainly of ‘no’, our viking of the roads sees Colin’s potential in a pub at Christmas, and leans in. With a care that looks like cruelty to the world outside, he coaxes it out.
But as Colin’s self-esteem grows during his full-throttle ride into this fetish subculture, he discovers that the power dynamic of absolute servitude that his master requires isn’t requisite to his own needs. In other words, they’re like any other doomed couple: realising they can’t be the person the other needs them to be. It’s a melancholy tragedy, where – ironically – Colin comes out on top.
Thighs pressed together in tight black leather on winding roads; men in modified wrestling suits tousling in quiet, sparsely furnished London flats; camping trips showing gay men creating their own radical utopias – these images are not typically those of big-budget mainstream films. Pillion was promoted under the Valentine’s Day banner, and it’s true that the film is far gentler on audiences than the award-winning novel by Adam Mars-Jones it was based on (which depicted sexual violence, rape included, and a tragic accidental death). It’s hard not to be won over by this more romantic adaptation to screen.
Colin’s parents are modified in this version of the story, too. Douglas Hodge is dad Pete and Lesley Sharp is mum Peggy (bald and bewigged from chemo), both mollycoddling and adorably supportive of their gay son. Instead of a parallel plot in which the father becomes wholly co-dependent on his dying wife, the pair represent those baffled ‘normie’ loved ones, who just can never understand a world so different to their own. The frictions, the irresolvable differences in rituals and behaviours, Pete and Peggy’s confused will to protect their only child’s best interests: these tensions produce frequent humour and pain.
Whether the BDSM relationship in Pillion is anything like that practiced or advocated by the kink and fetish communities isn’t something I can speak on with authority (necessary disclosure there lol). Though Lighton did involve the UK-based Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club in the making of the film, it’s worth noting that the online reaction to the film from those within the community has been mixed. Certainly, it was made with a majority vanilla audience in mind, with entertainment value a priority over authenticity. Do all its sentimental touches and humorous flourishes serve the subculture it portrays? I suspect this could be moot.
More significantly, Ray is hardly a model dom, dictating – for most of the film – that erotics are everything, with no space for significant emotional connection. When aftercare happens, it is (in its own way) fatal. I suppose what I’m positing is that this film presents a very particular and semi-dysfunctional BDSM love story, which mainstream audiences shouldn’t mistake as typical.
Regardless, the two leads are exceptional. Skarsgård is masterful as the inscrutable enigma of Ray, vulnerable for all his worshipful presence and stoic self-possession. Harry Melling (yes, a slimmed down Dudley Dursley) is a revelation; you never doubt his character’s fierce will to take ownership over his own decisions and journey.
I can’t help but be a little crestfallen that a larger guy wasn’t cast as Colin: in the book, our narrator consistently refers to himself as ‘hefty’. Truly, there are not enough hefty adult male actors with serious roles on screen – especially roles in which they get to be represented as desiring and desirable.
A minor note though. Pillion is an exhilarating, visually impressive and thought-provoking film about the ineluctable conflict between the care we owe our various loved ones and ourselves. Bonus pleasures for those who enjoy a lot of frames devoted to quivering buttocks.
