Direction: Harry Lighton
Country: UK / Ireland
Harry Lighton’s confident feature debut, Pillion, adapts Adam Mars-Jones’s 2020 novel Box Hill, telling the story of an introverted, openly gay man (Harry Melling) who becomes the submissive companion of a seductive biker (Alexander Skarsgård), who turns him into a servant and sexual object. He accepts this role willingly until, one day, everything shifts. Lighton also draws inspiration from Kenneth Anger’s experimental short film Scorpio Rising (1963).
Relatively simple in concept but complex in detail, Pillion portrays an atypical relationship in which brutality and tenderness coexist. It is a well-written, carefully constructed, shape-shifting work guided by powerful, pitch-perfect performances from Melling and Skarsgård, both of whom excel in the face of demanding material.
Evocatively transgressive and unexpected, the convincing scenes accumulate emotional impact. Some elements are intentionally left unspoken, requiring the viewer to read between the lines of the characters’ behavior. This is neither a conventional crowd-pleaser nor a traditional romance, but something more unusual and less familiar. Lighton’s approach replaces sentimentality with mordancy, while razor-sharp wit appears in measured, well-timed doses. It makes a striking dramatic statement, boldly peculiar in nature, much like its characters.
Although not for everyone, Pillion is determined to be candid, boundary-pushing, and entertaining, weaving a carefully balanced dynamic that is controlled by neither character.
