Alexander Skarsgård Does a Lot Without Words in This Salty-Sweet BDSM Romance

Colin (Harry Melling), the mild-mannered hero of Pillion, lives at home in Bromley, works in parking enforcement, sings in a barbershop quartet for fun, and goes on blind dates with equally polite men arranged by his enthusiastic mother. He’s probably not entirely untouched, but he’s inexperienced enough that when he tries to give a blowjob to the biker he miraculously meets at a pub one night, it involves what’s clearly a lot more gagging than its recipient is used to. Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) — taciturn, dominant, and exceptionally handsome — has gotten more action over a weekend than Colin has had in his entire life to date. But he sees something in the younger man that prompts him to come back for more. There’s a guilelessness to Colin, an openness about what a privilege he finds it to be asked to lick Ray’s boots, even if the way he has to keep pausing to spit out grit robs the action of some of its erotic charge. Colin may not have given much thought to dominance and submission before, but he has what Ray describes as an “aptitude for devotion” that makes him ideally suited to the relationship they end up in, even if they have to weather all sorts of awkwardness along the way.

Pillion, a salty-sweet directorial debut from Harry Lighton that just premiered at Cannes, is the second BDSM-tinged romance that A24 is set to release in the stretch of a year, though unlike Babygirl, it’s queer and formally kinky. Ray shaves Colin’s head, introduces him to his crew of leather daddies and their respective subs, and whisks him away for a weekend of camping and waiting bent over a picnic table for his dom’s attention. Through a series of terse orders and unspoken prompts, Colin figures out that he’s expected to cook for Ray in his lover’s stark duplex, to stand behind him while he eats, and to sleep at the foot of the bed on a rug at night. Still, while it may be more explicit than Halina Reijn’s film, Pillion is more of a self-discovery journey than a sexual one — another story of someone slowly learning to articulate what it is they want. What Colin has to overcome isn’t shame but timidity. He’s so grateful to have been selected by this golden god of a man, and to lean into the pleasures of being told what to do, that it takes him a long time to admit that there are things he wants from their dynamic that he isn’t getting.

This tension gives Pillion a melancholy heart but also results in a film that is, chain collars and ass-eating aside, surprisingly mild at its core — or, at least, it ends up positioning dominance and submission in counterpoint to emotional intimacy in a way that echoes E.L. James more than you might expect. “You should be spoiled rotten!” his mother, Peggy (Lesley Sharp), who’s very invested in seeing her son settle down before the cancer she’s been struggling with claims her life, barks in disapproval. While there’s an obvious irony there — Colin’s parents are perfectly supportive of his sexuality but can’t wrap their heads about his interest in kink — Pillion doesn’t entirely disagree. Ray, at least, is intentionally funny in ways James would never dream of, from the moment he first approaches Colin by leaning dramatically into the frame while the latter waits at the bar to order a drink. He has tattoos of his dogs’ names at the center of his muscled chest, sits around reading Karl Ove Knausgård, and generally has the air of a Tom of Finland sketch that has sprung to life and decided to live in suburban London. Ray isn’t a talker, nor someone interested in sharing details of his life beyond the carefully compartmentalized aspects Colin sees, and Skarsgård does a lot with a wordless look.

Colin, meanwhile, can’t help but fill the silence with burbles of small talk, even when he’s aware it’s unwanted and that he’s in danger of ruining the mood. It’s an amusing habit that’s also, like a lot of things about the character, deeply endearing. Melling, whose face is all circles, is a beauty, if a less conventional one than his co-star, and while Colin sees his romance as a fairy tale, one emphasized by dreamy close-ups when he clings to Ray on his motorcycle, Pillion is always aware of the character’s appeal as well as his vulnerability. This is the kind of role that tends to get described as “brave,” though the most daring aspects of Melling’s performance involve how exposed Colin is emotionally. We spend the movie dreading the fact that he’s probably going to get hurt — and not because of the BDSM but because of how unaware he is of his own value; he’s certain he ought to take whatever he can get, even if it’s not enough. That may be how you grow, but that doesn’t make it any easier in the moment.