Pillion (2025)
Pillion, the new gay romantic dramedy from A24, is a marvelous magic trick of a movie—a love story with really only one person at its core.
The film, written and directed by Harry Lighton, centers on Colin (Harry Melling), a young gay man living in London with his parents (a terrific Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp). A parking attendant by day and barbershop quartet singer by night, Colin is exceedingly shy and tentative—that is, until he meets Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a mysterious biker with whom he begins a BDSM relationship. As he casually notes to another character partway through the film, Colin quickly learns that he has an "aptitude for devotion," for better and for worse.
Pillion, as to be expected, will not be for everyone and is fairly unsparing in its depictions of sex and power play. More importantly, it asks pertinent and provocative questions about how these two issues intertwine. Much like last year's The Materialists by Celine Song, Pillion has the set-up of a romantic comedy but is similarly interested in exploring the romantic and sexual complications and contradictions underneath.
If The Materialists ultimately goes soft in that film's fairytale-lite ending, Pillion is committed to avoiding easy or convenient romantic solutions. A lot of its success is owed to the actors. Melling, a wholly unique screen presence, alternately radiates shyness, vulnerability, and growing self-possession at every turn. Skarsgård, the Nordic heartthrob perhaps best known as Nicole Kidman's monstrous husband in HBO's Big Little Lies, is perfectly cast as the withholding and aloof Ray. Just when Ray's emotional distance and occasional cruelty threatens to push the audience too far, Skarsgård exhibits just enough glimmers of humanity and latent sweetness to keep us invested.
However, Pretty Woman or When Harry
Met Sally, this movie is not. As thorny as it is humanistic (and,
ultimately, even sweet), Pillion ultimately sticks the landing by
honoring Colin's desires while acknowledging the unspoken love story buried
beneath every rom-com—the one we have with ourselves.
