Let’s just get the inevitable out of the way. The new film Pillion, which premiered here at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, is in some ways similar to last year’s Babygirl, a comedy-drama-romance about a dom-sub relationship. Pillion, from first-time feature director Harry Lighton, examines the same sort of coupling, from timid beginning to full-body commitment. But in comportment, tone, and intention, Pillion is otherwise wholly different from Babygirl. Rather than satiric provocation, Pillion is a disarmingly poignant drama of discovery.
The film stars Harry Melling, moony eyed and Fran Lebowitz coiffed, as Colin, a young-ish man (maybe early 30s) living with his parents in an anonymous city in the United Kingdom. He sings with his father and brother in a barbershop quartet and spends social time at a local queer pub with a pal who might want something more. Colin is shy, and seems woefully uncertain of his place in the gay ecosystem. At the bar one Christmas Eve, he’s quite taken by the striking, self-possessed man he sees across the room. To Colin’s giddy surprise, the man—whom we later learn is a motorcycle enthusiast named Ray (Alexander Skarsgård)—approaches Colin and slips him a terse note, instructing Colin where and when to meet him the next evening. (So, on Christmas.)
Thus begins an improbable sort of romance, or courtship, or contractual arrangement. It’s hard to define by typical standards, this thing that Colin and Ray create—though really, it’s mostly Ray’s invention. Colin simply does as he’s told, hungrily compliant to this looming adonis whose gruff, emotionless instruction is both turn-on and threat. Colin’s family, ailing mum (Lesley Sharp) and encouraging dad (Douglas Hodge), are happy that their lonely son is dating someone—we never detect any squeamishness about Colin’s sexuality—but they grow increasingly bemused as Colin cedes more and more of himself to this mysterious biker, changing his clothing and appearance and behavior.
Watching this unfold, one braces for the cautionary tale to come. But Lighton graciously avoids moral judgment. Characters state their concerns; there is some degree of confusion and alarm. Yet Pillion is not a leering, foreboding look at a subculture. Too often, stories that delve into the margins of sex let an innate repulsion guide and color their fascination. Pillion takes a more thoughtful and compassionate approach, without gauzing over the realities of Colin and Ray’s relationship.
Pillion is a graphic film. It’s far from hardcore, but no doubt some viewers will still be titillated or put-off by the film’s depiction of gay sex and male anatomy, by the rough foreplay enjoyed between two consenting—if, perhaps, not equally matched—adults. That frankness is crucial to Lighton’s project; mere coy hinting at the central matter would do disservice to the sentiment of the film. Pillion is ultimately ambivalent about what this all means. Or, at least, it lets a potent question hang in the air: when does a willingly agreed-upon abnegation of autonomy become something less than consensual?
Lighton’s answer to that question is, essentially, that there is no one answer. Colin’s specific story is one complicated by loss and love and a dawning understanding of himself and his desire. He learns and experiences both good and bad things; he loses aspects of himself and finds crucial others. Pillion is a coming-of-adulthood film that projects the universal through a particular lens. Lighton does not shy away from those particularities. He soberly delves into the mores and customs of Ray’s community of fellow travelers, leather daddies and their partners whose bonhomie would seem, initially, to belie the nature of their roleplay.
What results from all this attention and care is a film that deftly balances squirmy comedy with gentle pathos, social suspense with offbeat warmth. Pillion gives little indication that Lighton is a first-time feature director. The film is confidently staged and handsomely styled, elegantly gliding through Colin and Ray’s adventure (or misadventure) with a keen eye for detail and texture. Melling, a long way from his Harry Potter days, beautifully renders Colin’s nerves and elation, both the giddy amazement and the real apprehension at a major life epoch’s sudden emergence. Skarsgård’s main directive is to be stern and withholding, but he and Lighton allow for a few breathtaking moments when Ray lets the facade drop and we glimpse the real man—maybe hurting, maybe scared too—behind the act.
It’s tempting to read a certain self-loathing into one such moment—to see in it a suggestion that Ray’s hyper-masc, domineering persona is rooted in latent and self-destroying homophobia. There may be some truth to that. But yet again, Pillion pulls away from absolutism. This moment, brief and heartbreaking, instead catches two people in a vivid flash of connection that probably only they can truly understand. The beauty of Pillion is that those of us watching on the sidelines are not voyeurs, but rather witnesses to something powerfully complex and human.
This story is part of Awards Insider’s in-depth Cannes coverage, including first looks and exclusive interviews with some of the event’s biggest names. Stay tuned for more Cannes stories as well as a special full week of Little Gold Men podcast episodes, recorded live from the festival and publishing every day.
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