Leave your expectations for Alexander Skarsgård's new movie Pillion at the door: it's steamy and sexy, but it's so much more than a rom-com

Pillion probably isn't the movie you're expecting. If you've read the source material (Box Hill, a modest, devastating novella by Adam Mars-Jones), you'll already have a preconceived idea of what the film's central relationship looks like. If you haven't, you may have seen reviews or social media first reactions dubbing Pillion a rom-com or "feel-good" film (which might raise an eyebrow if you're familiar with Mars-Jones' work). It's not quite either of those things, though, and it's all the better for it.

The film follows Colin (Harry Melling), a lonely, reserved parking attendant who still lives with his parents in the suburbs. After a chance encounter with biker gang leader Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) in a pub on Christmas Eve, Colin finds himself entangled in an intense dominant/submissive relationship that begins with oral sex in an alleyway on Christmas Day. Outsiders are baffled at what devastatingly handsome Ray could see in clumsy Colin, and Colin is, too, initially. "You sort of bring his qualities into relief," another member of the gang tells him.

Don't get me wrong, I love a rom-com, but putting Pillion into this category feels a little reductive to me: what romance and comedy there is here isn't anywhere near as straightforward as the genre usually requires. Colin and Ray don't have a conventional relationship: Ray promptly moves Colin into his house, where he cooks, cleans, and sleeps on Ray's bedroom floor. Ray gets Colin to shave his head and wear a padlocked chain around his neck, and the pair never, ever kiss. Colin thrives in this environment to begin with, but gradually starts to yearn for more from Ray, even if he doesn't know how to ask for it. At times, Ray is crushingly aware of Colin's inexperience, and it's uncomfortable to watch.

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There are comedic moments throughout Pillion too, thanks to the hapless charm Melling brings to Colin, but they have a bittersweet aftertaste because of the uneven nature of the relationship, and first-time writer-director Harry Lighton makes sure that any humor is never at Colin's expense and, despite it all, we understand fully why Colin wants to stick around. It's a confident control of tone from a debut filmmaker.

Different contexts

Although it was published in 2020, Mars-Jones' novella was written in 1999, in the shadow of the AIDS crisis and the UK's Section 28, which banned the "promotion" of homosexuality, and a lesser-known case, Operation Spanner. This was an early '90s police crackdown on gay BDSM practices, which led to the legal precedent in the UK that you can't consent to actual bodily harm. Unlike the movie's 21st-century setting, the book sees Colin looking back from the late '90s at his relationship with Ray 20 years earlier.

"You end up, whether you know it or not, as an ambassador for your sexuality… And at this point, I thought, 'OK, let's go the other way," Mars-Jones said in an interview around the time of the book's release. With Box Hill, which has the subtitle 'A Story of Low Self-Esteem,' he said he wanted to write "the ugliest story that could still be described as a love story." Although the bones of the story are the same, there are some scenes of explicit sexual assault, and Colin doesn't take to his new role quite like the duck to water that Melling's version of the character is.

By shaking off this heavy historical context, there's a little less of this "ugliness" and Pillion is able to inject more light and humor into its script. Colin is a little older in the film than he is in the book, a little more sure of himself. His parents are more supportive, too: unlike in the novella, they know that he's gay (his mother even sets him up on dates) and they know about his relationship with Ray – although they don't quite know all the ins and outs of their dynamic.

A well-oiled machine

Watching Pillion, the audience isn't ever made to feel like they're gawping outsiders looking at the BDSM community from a safe distance. The other members of Ray's biker gang are played by people involved in the real-life Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (who took to the Cannes red carpet in full leather earlier this year), and Lighton takes pains to depict this subculture with care and respect. Nothing is sensationalized, even in the film's riskier, more explicit moments.

Because Pillion doesn't shy away from sex; far from it. Melling and Skarsgård both give fearless performances, a term that's often thrown around but certainly applies here. Both actors embrace the vulnerability needed to make these characters feel real and lived in, echoing the vulnerability that's necessary to create a well-oiled BDSM relationship. That being said, the film doesn't gloss over the stickier parts of their relationship, either, and Ray's abuse of power is never romanticized.

Does the film endeavor to make Colin and Ray's relationship more palatable for a straight audience? I don't think so. In the film's final act, it has a chance to write off Colin's sexual proclivities as misguided or wrong, a blip in the wider story of his life, but instead it doubles down on the idea of sexual freedom as personal freedom. By the end of the movie, Colin knows exactly what he wants – and he's happier, more self-assured, and a better person for it.

Pillion arrives in UK cinemas on November 28 and US theaters on February 6. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.