Pillion: Movie Review

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Harry Melling, Lesley Sharp

Director: Harry Lighton

There's an aching sadness which pervades Pillion's central BDSM romance.

In this drama, adapted from Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem by Adam Mars-Jones, Ray (True Blood's Skarsgard) strikes up a relationship with a quiet ordinary man named Colin (the brilliant Melling).

Colin is a traffic warden, doling out tickets to miscreants who overstay their parking and receiving nothing but abuse back for doing so. Then during his night gig as a singer in a barbershop quartet, he sees a skulking Ray, hiding in the corner. Bumping into each other at the bar, Ray gives Colin a card with a demand to meet him on Christmas Day.

As Colin acquiesces to the mystery ahead, he soon finds himself immersed in the 1970s UK gay biker scene, and part of a submissive in the Dom-Sub relationship. Initially reticent to be part of it, Colin soon gives himself over to the demands of the relationship, much to the horror of his mother Peggy, who believes Ray is a creep because he won't come round for Sunday lunch.

To say more about Pillion is to deprive it of its rhythms. 

There are no seismic revelations here - aside from one sequence at the end, which is utterly tragic - and both Skarsgard and Melling make for committed partners in this piece, which provides different challenges for each. The naivety that Melling plays Colin with makes him an endearing and relatable character, no matter what kind of relationship he's actually in.

And while Skarsgard has the harder part as the silent and dominant one, he makes his Ray an understandable character whose needs are squarely based on what his views of this relationship should be.

A lack of judgement and a touch of restraint from Lighton makes this a compelling watch, one that captures the heartbreak and joy of a relationship - and which shows devotion in its many forms can be utterly devouring - and totally destructive.