Pillion *** (2025, Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård) – Classic Movie Review 13,796

The 2025 romantic comedy-drama film Pillion stars Harry Melling as a timid gay man and Alexander Skarsgård as an enigmatic biker who enjoy a BDSM relationship.

Harry Melling stars as a timid, introverted young English parking attendant called Colin, who gets dangerously involved in a submissive BDSM relationship with an enigmatic, impossibly handsome older motorcyclist named Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), in debut writer/ director Harry Lighton’s 2025 British drama film Pillion.

The story is based on the 2020 novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones.

Get your crash helmet on, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Pillion may be easy to watch but it is hard to like. It is a queasy, uneasy film, amusing and entertaining in places, maybe most places, but it relies way too much on its supposed shock value. You are just sitting there waiting to see how far it will go. And it obliges, kindly, and regularly, going quite far. It really rides on its shock value, pushing any thoughtful story way into the background, though maybe it is there, somewhere in the distance, somewhere in the darkness.

Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård go at it for all it’s worth and quite a bit more, and should get medals for bravery under fire. Both of them are ideally cast (though Skarsgård is so not a Ray) and show their worth as actors under very difficult circumstances. It must have kept the intimacy coordinator and prosthetic designer busy big time.

At heart there is something slightly rather rancid and meretricious rather than heart-warming, amusing or inspiring about the project. It feels like an exploiter, and the actors seem a shade exploited. It’s Shades of Gay, really. But, like Colin, you could feel conflicted.

Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge are good as Melling’s ridiculous, tragic parents, Peggy and Pete. Sharp gives an especially sharp darkly comedic performance, very Mike Leigh. This is excellent stuff. The parents’ meal with the boys is hilarious.

It all goes to show that Alexander Skarsgård is undeniably an impossibly handsome hunk of man, though quite why he would want to be Ray is a slight mystery. He speaks of trying to find nuance in the role. But it is not that kind of role. He is just the obscure object of desire that arrives mysteriously one day, behaves mysteriously, and then vanishes mysteriously. Colin is tempted, and immediately falls into temptation, truly, madly, deeply. But then he wants something else, an emotional, romantic relationship that Ray can’t, or won’t provide. Frankly, Ray seems more interested in his motorbike and his Rottweiler dog. It’s a sad, sad story of two people who connect strongly but are a mismatch. No good can come of it, though apparently a lot of fun can be enjoyed along the way.

The film premiered at the Cannes Festival on 18 May 2025, where it mysteriously enjoyed a seven-minute standing ovation. It had its British premiere on 18 October 2025 at the BFI London Film Festival. It is released in UK cinemas by Picturehouse on 28 November 2025 and in the US by A24 on 6 February 2026.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,796

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