Pillion – Film Review
by Brian Merriman

Written and directed by Harry Lighton
Based on the 2020 novel Box Hill  by Adam Mars-Jones
Composer: Oliver Coates
Cinematographer: Nick Morris
Producers include Picture House,  Element Pictures and BBC Film.
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Harry Melling, Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge,

Pillion is not for the faint-hearted. Co-produced by Ireland’s Element Pictures, who are known for their edgy work, the plot takes place in England and centres on Colin (Harry Melling), a shy, young gay man who struggles to connect in a relationship.

Despite the enthusiastic encouragement of his parents, Peggy (Lesley Sharpe) and Pete (Douglas Hodge), Colin is not making much headway. The parents are unusually the more positive aspects of the gay storyline. Mum (a great study by Sharpe) has cancer, and that seems to add to the pressure to get Colin sorted and happy. Ably supported by Dad, an empathetic Hodge, who sings in a barbershop quartet with his son. There is no judgment, other than the pursuit of their son’s happiness. There, the idealism ends.

Colin, beautifully underplayed by Harry Melling, is shy, introverted and open to relationships. He encounters the mysterious and ruggedly handsome Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who entices him away from home one Christmas evening. It is a life-changing and developing encounter for Colin. Ray is a man of few words, but many notes.

Writer and Director, Harry Lighton, doesn’t pull his punches in introducing us to the dark side of the dominant leather gay scene. Adding to this, the explicit plot centres on the control of the naive Colin by Ray in a heavily dominated relationship. We are spared nothing on screen from public sex, humiliation, control, domestic devotion and detachment. Colin has never had any attention, and Ray is a master in all senses of the word. The prize for Colin is the forced intimacy with this god-like body, rationed out on a reward basis. Colin’s main appeal is his capacity for devotion, a capacity tested to its limits.

The scenes are graphic and well done. The biker groups are plausible, and the fetishes are not toned down. The developing arc of Colin, who finds his voice in this voiceless set-up, is one of the counterbalances of what could just be a graphic, salacious storyline. It is much more than that, and despite the role-playing stereotypes, we get an insight into both Colin, who is studied closely and the more remote Ray, who is voyeured on screen. Ray’s ripped body, but rarely his well-protected mind, is studied by the camera and script.

Pillion has a pulsating soundtrack, a plot of colour, despite the black leather backdrop. This dominant/submissive male association exists on the periphery of the gay community. This niche group has a strong following from those men, both interested and excited by physical, emotional and sexual dominance and those who willingly subject themselves to that activity.

Element Pictures is known for celebrating the different; no doubt this is what attracted them to co-produce this screen project with Picture House and the BBC. Element’s traditional psychedelic fantasy settings are not on screen but in the minds, actions and desires of Ray and Colin.

No further investment from your own imagination is required in viewing Pillion – it is all laid bare on screen, presented with skill and authenticity. Pillion is a different movie, from mainstream producers, about a different lifestyle and in that, it is a difference worth seeing.