PILLION
- Colin Fraser
- Feb 18
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
THREE AND A HALF STARS From pillion to pillow, Colin learns the dominating power of submission.
DRAMA UK English #PILLION Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Harry Melling
There’s a moment early in PILLION where you suspect you’ve accidentally wandered into a particularly well-lit fever dream: leather, motorcycles, and a courtship ritual that involves more instructions than affection. Relax. This is not quite the forbidding artefact its source novel (Box Hill) might suggest, but something far cheekier - a bona fide “dom-com” with a soft centre and a raised eyebrow.
Colin (Harry Melling - HARRY POTTER), a still-living-with-his-parents wallflower, falls under the spell of Ray (Alexander Skarsgård - THE NORTHMAN), a tight-lipped, impossibly handsome biker who inducts him into a rigid dom/sub relationship. What begins as Colin surrendering autonomy in a car-park, then cooking, cleaning and sleeping at the end of (not in) Ray's bed, slowly evolves into something more reciprocal. But as Colin grows in confidence, he begins to question the arrangement, ultimately reshaping the dynamic and, quietly but decisively, taking control of his own life.
Director Harry Lighton makes the crucial decision to sand down the novel’s sharper, more disquieting edges. Where the book leans into coercion and imbalance, the film reframes things as negotiated, if occasionally eyebrow-raising, consent. Such as Colin’s decision to get in the bed. The result is less psychologically bruising and more emotionally accessible, a shift that will either feel like a betrayal or a mercy, depending on your attitude to source purity (and appetite for discomfort). It lets you laugh without immediately questioning your moral compass.
And laugh you do. Not always loudly, but knowingly. Tonally this sits somewhere between deadpan British suburbia and kink-aware romantic comedy, a balance that shouldn’t work but mostly does. There’s a perverse sweetness to watching Colin’s journey through submission and out the other side. His arc is the real engine here: a man who begins as a passenger (the titular “pillion”) and ends up, if not exactly driving, at least with a firm hand on the handlebars.
Then, Ray disappears. Without a word. It’s a significant departure from Mars-Jones’ novel that, to be fair, progresses the movie. It’s less challenging than may have been the author’s intent, but it makes sense in Lighton’s narrative, and brings shape to the film’s journey.
PILLION is a two-hander that delivers. Melling is superb, locating both the comedy and the quiet ache in Colin’s evolution, while Skarsgård gives Ray a flicker of vulnerability that stops him becoming a leather-clad cipher. Their chemistry sells the push-pull dynamic without tipping into parody, no small feat given the material.
As Colin’s concerned (not dominating) rainbow mother, Peggy Sharp gets one of the best scenes berating Ray about his intentions for her son. It's clear he's never been berated before and really doesn't know what to do about it. Meanwhile a cameo from Scissor Sister Jake Shears adds a wink of camp legitimacy. His appearance at a ‘bottom buffet’ reminding us that this world, however stylised, isn’t entirely divorced from lived-in subculture.
While Lighton’s film leans away from the novel’s sting, it puts in place something more approachable, even tender. This is a story about power that is ultimately taken by the person who seemed least likely to claim it. It’s less sexual, more charming and, in many ways, more rewarding.
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