de facto film reviews 2.5 stars
It is the duty of storytellers to explore various areas of humanity and its behavior, ideally without judgement or bias to achieve the most honest portrayal of their subject as possible. Being human, we very rarely can separate ourselves as either the storyteller or the audience member. I found the new film Pillion to pose such a challenge to me personally.

Courtesy A24

Debut feature film director Harry Lighton adapts Pillion from the 2020 novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones. It tells the story of Colin (Harry Melling), a virginal young man whose world extends from living with his kind father and dying mother to the local tavern where he performs in an a capella chorus with his father and several other men. We see him on a tentative first date with an obviously somewhat older man, but it’s not a natural fit (though later it will come to seem much more natural in contrast). Going to the bar, Colin is then approached by an attractive man in biker uniform, Ray (Alexander Skarsgard). An unspoken invitation and sort of test is played out, with Ray leaving Colin a note. It is here that Colin makes a decision.
What proceeds from this initial meeting goes to places hard to describe in a review, except to say that what opens up to young, meek Colin and his small world is a subculture of gay life, involving bikers, leather, and a hierarchy of dominance and consensual slavery, if such a thing is possible. Colin seeks to connect with Ray, who clearly only operates in this strict, ritualistic system of control. But Skarsgard uses his subtle skills as an actor to briefly give glimpses into the warmth and humanity underneath the immovable exterior. His home is sparse, and he expects Colin to cook his food and lie on the floor at the foot of the bed like a dog.

Courtesy A24

As their arrangement progresses, Colin experiences more of the biker/BDSM culture, including biker retreats as a group to the forest at a sort of recreational Boystown, engaging in water games and random orgies. He hides all of this, of course, from his well-meaning but naïve parents, but he finds himself increasingly drawn into this world and discovering a purpose and another side of himself. Oddly, he’s finding himself while relinquishing his agency to someone else. Without giving spoilers, I can say that the film aims to find the cracks in the façade of not the subculture as a whole but in the particular seemingly unknowable and unreachable character of Ray.
There comes a point where he allows such cracks, however briefly, before returning to the rules. He grants Colin a day off, where the strict dynamics are relinquished and they can interact as two equals. This brought to my mind the Roman Saturnalia, which was an occasion when the power differentials were reversed for a day, and the emperors and elites were subjugated to the slaves and lower classes. Incidentally, Saturnalia is also the Christmas rituals in the sex magic circles that involve human trafficking. It is this temporary suspension of the ritual that leads to the change in Ray and Colin’s relationship, which propels them both to a curious ending (and I won’t reveal it here).
One can approach cultures or groups that are foreign or downright off-putting and still find the commonalities we all share. It’s a commendable thing as an artist to attempt this exploration and let your audience make up their own minds about how they feel toward what’s depicted and have their own reactions without imposing your own onto them. The strength of the film is that director Lighton seems to be offering and intending this.

Courtesy A24

But for me, the subject matter was not only foreign but distasteful for multiple reasons, including morally and physically. The reveal of traces of vulnerability beneath the cold exteriors was admirable, but the places we were required to go to in order to get to those momentary reveals was not, for this viewer, enough to make the film worth more than one cursory view. I like to think I was not judging the characters and their choices, but I was nevertheless put off by them. It raises the questions: Can consenting adults engage in something that is harming them even when it appears not to be? Is it okay to find sexual titillation in a staged form of such harm? And can real connection be forged amidst it? Coming to a conclusion isn’t the goal of the film, but exploration is.
Pillion leaves each of us to explore our own views on this.
Pillion is now playing in theaters.