“Pillion” and the Uncomfortable Truths of Desire – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Frontmezzjunkies Film Review: Harry Lighton’s Provocative Exploration of Power, Consent, and Queer Intimacy

By Ross

From that first moment when Colin is seen in that pub, he is packed neatly into a life that feels small, dull, but safe, singing in harmony with his father and never quite stepping forward into anything that might disrupt that balance. That image lingers long after “Pillion” begins to unravel or unwrap it, depending on how you see it, because what follows is not a gentle expansion of self, but a plunge into something far more complicated, intoxicating, demanding, and at times quietly dangerous.

Directed by Harry Lighton (“Wren Boys“) and adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’s novel Box Hill, “Pillion” positions itself at the intricate intersection of the road to romance, desire, and power with a confident right-hand turn into something that feels both assured and deliberately provocative. The film looks into the life of Colin, played with an aching openness by Harry Melling (“The Pale Blue Eye“), as a young man who has yet to fully claim his own. Living at home with his parents, played beautifully by Douglas Hodge (“Joker“) and Lesley Sharp (“The Full Monty“), he moves through a world defined by a ticketed routine and quiet obligation, his emotional range contained within the polite, bland structures that have always held him.

That containment is shattered the moment he catches the attention of Ray, embodied with striking physical authority and emotional detachment by Alexander Skarsgård (“Big Little Lies“). Their first encounter is basically wordless, built on a demanding steel-eyed gaze and instinct rather than conversation, and it sets the tone for a relationship that unfolds with a disarming lack of negotiation. Ray does not seduce so much as select, drawing Colin into his orbit with a certainty that feels both magnetic and somewhat unsettling. What begins as curiosity mixed with physical lust quickly evolves into a complex dynamic defined by control, obedience, and a deeply felt need on Colin’s part to belong and please.

Lighton’s film is remarkably effective in capturing the tense, emotional truth of that pull. There is nothing ironic or distant in Colin’s desire. He is exhilarated beyond belief by the attention and the structure Ray imposes, by the clarity of expectation, by the sense that he has finally found a place where he is wanted, even if that place requires him to reshape himself to remain in it. Melling plays this with a delicacy that never slips into caricature. He allows us to see both the thrill and the cost of that transformation. His Colin is not a victim in any simplistic sense, but neither is he fully empowered, and it is within that tension that the film finds its sharpest tension.

This is the intersection where “Pillion” enters a debate that has tightened its rope around. The film’s portrayal of a dom–sub relationship is intentionally stripped of the frameworks that many within BDSM communities would recognize as essential. There are no explicit conversations about boundaries, no clear negotiation of consent, and no visible safety mechanisms guiding what unfolds between these two men. For some viewers, this absence reads as troubling, even irresponsible, particularly for those unfamiliar with the dynamics being depicted. Without that context, Ray’s behaviour can appear less like a consensual act of engagement and more like coercion, his authority accepted rather than agreed upon.

At the same time, the film’s defenders argue that this lack of clarity is precisely the point. Lighton is not documenting a model relationship, but exploring the messy, often unarticulated ways desire and power can entangle. The emotional reality of Colin’s experience, his willingness to submit, his eagerness to please, his gradual awakening to his own needs, is rendered with a specificity that resists easy judgment. From this perspective, the film is less about instructing its audience and more about placing them inside a dynamic that must be felt before it can be understood.

Holding both of these responses at once feels necessary. As a piece of storytelling, “Pillion” is deeply compelling, even moving. As a representation of kink dynamics, it raises legitimate concerns. The absence of explicit consent conversations does not simply streamline the narrative, as its creator implies; it creates a vacuum in which viewers must supply their own understanding, and not all will have the tools to do so safely. Colin’s journey toward self-assertion, culminating in his quiet but firm articulation of what he needs, lands with emotional weight. But it also highlights how little agency he has been shown to exercise up to that point.

The film’s explicit sexual content exists within this same tension. It is undeniably graphic, and at times deliberately shocking, but it rarely feels gratuitous. These moments are experienced largely through Colin’s perspective, capturing both his overwhelm and his fascination as he learns, in real time, what it means to occupy this role. The discomfort, enhanced by the cinematography of Nick Morris (“Sweetpea“), is part of its design, circling back to the question of what is being communicated and to whom.

What elevates “Pillion” beyond provocation is its refusal to reduce its characters to symbols or role models. Ray is not easily categorized as a villain or an ideal. Skarsgård expertly plays him with a stillness that suggests certainty rather than cruelty, though that certainty can feel impenetrable. Colin’s mother, in a sharply observed turn from Sharp, voices the audience’s unease during a dinner sequence that crackles with tension, all the while his father offers a more tentative acceptance that complicates any straightforward moral stance. The film allows these perspectives to coexist, creating a space where judgment is present but never definitive.

At its core, “Pillion” operates as a story of self-discovery, one that resists the conventions of both traditional heteronormative romance and any easy rejection of them. The relationship between Colin and Ray is neither wholly sustaining nor entirely destructive. It is formative, messy, and deeply human in its contradictions. Colin’s growth does not come from escaping the dynamic entirely, but from beginning to understand his place within it, and more importantly, his right to shape it. And as for Ray, Skarsgård tracks the subtle shifts in Ray with remarkable precision, allowing small changes in expression to carry disproportionate weight. The sudden shift in his eyes when their idyllic afternoon tilts into something unexpectedly conventional and sunny packs a serious punch. Was that always the plan once the unspoken contract was fractured, or the result of an immediate awakening he did not anticipate?

That ambiguity lingers, just as the image of Colin singing in the pub returns differently, transformed as the film reaches its final movements. The man who once blended into the background has stepped into something sharper, more defined, even if the path that led him there is far from simple or clean. What “Pillion” leaves behind is not a clear answer about love or power, but a lingering question about how we come to recognize our own voice, and what it costs to finally use it when we’ve spent so long believing we didn’t have one.