Pillion (dir. Harry Lighton)

by Jack Martin | Nov 26, 2025

Certificate: 18

Running Time: 107 mins

UK Distributor: Picturehouse Entertainment

UK Release Date: 28 November 2025

WHO’S IN PILLION?

Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharpe, Jake Shears, Paul “Kvasir” Tallis, Anthony Welsh

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Harry Lighton (director, writer), Lee Groombridge, Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe and Emma Norton (producers), Oliver Coates (composer), Nick Morris (cinematographer), Gareth C. Scales (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

An introverted young man (Melling) enters a BDSM relationship with a mysterious biker (Skarsgård)…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON PILLION?

In one single movie – his debut feature, no less – writer-director Harry Lighton has completely outshone all three entries in the Fifty Shades trilogy when it comes to depicting the kinky yet complicated realm of BDSM relationships. Pillion, unlike any of E.L. James’s laughably awful (in book form) and fatally uninteresting (in film form) trio, successfully conveys the uneasy dynamic between a dominant and a submissive, and how certain boundaries are irresponsibly ignored to the point that it can cause severe mental distress on one or even both.

But more importantly, even if you were to remove the BDSM aspect, Pillion is just a really good movie, something that no Fifty Shades movie could ever claim to be.

The film, adapted from the novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, opens on Christmas Eve as Colin (Harry Melling), a shy and introverted young man, is performing in a barbershop quartet at a local pub, where he’s also been set up on an awkward blind date with another guy by his parents, including his dying mother Peggy (Lesley Sharpe). It’s under the same circumstances where he also attracts the attention of Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), an impossibly handsome biker who slips him a rather direct note during a brief encounter at the bar, and before Colin knows it he’s having a sexually charged encounter Ray in a high street alley on Christmas night, where the latter displays an exceptionally forceful and dominant toward his taken-aback yet fascinated new sub. So begins an unconventional relationship between the two, as Colin begins to frequent Ray’s flat where he’s effectively treated like a servant, from cooking all of Ray’s meals to his exact liking to sleeping at the foot of his bed, all while occasionally being rewarded with rough love-making, though even then there’s little real intimacy shown from the closed-off Ray, much to Colin’s increasingly unsatisfied frustration.

Lighton’s script presents an air-tight case of a BDSM relationship that is always on the edge of veering from sexual gratification into straight-up abuse, as Skarsgård’s Ray so frequently treats Melling’s Colin like garbage that you wonder how anyone in that situation could be so blind towards the sheer toxicity that it is constantly dipping its toes in. Most BDSM arrangements are known to have more of an even footing between the two consenting parties than they may appear, a memo that Ray apparently missed since he often takes his dominant role to such extremes that it regularly appears as though poor sweet Colin is being taken advantage of in every aspect, as he is practically indoctrinated into being more of a dogsbody than the body of Ray’s actual dog (which unlike Colin has full access to the sofa). As a director, Lighton manages to frame the uneven dynamic between these two characters with a tone that almost resembles a rom-com, albeit one with far more assless outfits and leather-clad biker orgies than your average Richard Curtis picture, which deliberately juxtaposes the warped sense of romance between two men where, once again, you could legitimately analyse it as the severely abusive situation that it could very well be.

But surprisingly, Pillion focuses little on the negative aspects of this central relationship, and more on how it genuinely seems to help them come out of their respective shells. This is none more apparent than with Colin, played with an excellent amount of heart by Melling, whose initial excitement from being little more than the plaything of his new master slowly but surely ignites a newfound confidence within him, as he begins to understand his own limitations and even rebel against some of the commands barked at him by Ray, whom Skarsgård carefully imbues with an ice-cold swagger that makes him a far more cautiously charming dom than Christian Grey ever was. There are times when even Ray shows flashes of vulnerability, including a late sequence where his attempts to be a more normal romantic partner across the Bromley high street (on that note, it’s also nice to see the now-closed Bromley Picturehouse immortalised in a very touchy-feely scene) reveal a much more frightened and insecure man than he makes himself appear to be, further adding to the character’s fascinating complexity.

Abuse-adjacent relationship aside, Pillion is at its core a somewhat uplifting film about self-realisation regarding what we do or don’t like in our personal lives. Lighton’s nonjudgemental approach allows the characters, including the gang of gay bikers with whom Ray and later Colin frequently hang with (some of whom are played by actual members of LGBTQ+ motorcyclist groups), to freely express and explore their kinks in ways where they are allowed to learn from experience whether it’s for them or not, which in its own way is far sexier than the more straightforward depiction of BDSM that Hollywood tends to favour, and not just in the Fifty Shades movies. It’s certainly bound to cause discomfort among some of the film’s more conservative viewers, particularly those who feel that any kind of sexual expression is cause to clutch one’s pearls, but Lighton wisely refuses to compromise any of his film’s rougher edges as he shows the ins and outs of such a relationship, and how it can easily steer into abusive territory from a lack of care on either side.

As a bonus, where else are you going to find a movie in which Alexander Skarsgård tag teams on a guy posing as a tabletop while getting his ass eaten? You sure as hell won’t see that in Wicked: For Good, that’s for sure (unless there’s some raunchy deleted scene with some Munchkins that I’m unaware of).

SO, TO SUM UP…

Pillion is a well-constructed and surprisingly uplifting depiction of a borderline abusive BDSM relationship where filmmaker Harry Lighton allows his lead characters, brought to life by standout performances from Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård, the freedom to explore and evolve from their personal kinks in ways that are arguably sexier than most other Hollywood depictions of extreme erotic expression.