Is Lighton’s Pillion, screening at the BFI London Film Festival, one of the boldest and best gay movies of the past decade? You bet your ass it is!
Many modern gay movies and TV shows would like you to believe that gay sex and romance are all very vanilla. They portray gay love, sex and relationships through an accepted heterosexual lens where monogamy sits at the heart of relationships, sex is gentle and confined to the privacy of a double bed, and love is twee. However, let me tell you the truth, gay sex and dating are anything but vanilla, and anyone out there who has ever used a hookup app will know exactly what I mean. There are doms and subs, daddies’ and chubby-chasers, geeks, jocks and twinks, otters and bears.
The world of gay sex and relationships is, and always has been, a playing field of desires, tastes, likes and dislikes that can prove somewhat overwhelming at first glance. Of course, many movies have flirted with this diverse playing field over the years. Still, none have “blown the bloody doors off” with such humour, heart, and horniness as Harry Lighton’s spunky feature directorial debut, Pillion, adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ novel ‘Box Hill’.
For Colin, played by the fabulous Harry Melling, love and sex have long proved to be a distant dream. It’s not that the traffic warden hasn’t had dates; his terminally ill mum, Peggy (Lesley Sharp), has been studious in setting him up with prospective men, and his dad, Pete (Douglas Hodge), who Colin performs with in a barbershop quartet, also wants to see him settle down, find a man and move out of the family home. However, for quiet Colin, no man ever quite meets his needs and desires. He wants a man—someone rugged, masculine in every sense of the word, and someone dominant.
Luckily for Colin, a man fitting the bill is about to walk into the pub where he has just performed in the run-up to Christmas – a biker, clad in leather, with the body of Adonis and a domineering presence that instantly attracts the floppy-haired barbershop quartet boy.
Ray, played by the brilliant Alexander Skarsgård, is a man of few words, a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it. As he stands at the bar, he is more than aware of Colin’s attention and immediately sets about testing Colin’s interest in him, checking just how submissive he is willing to be with few words and even less eye contact with Colin, whose Christmases have all come at once. As he leaves the pub, Ray knows Colin ‘has potential’ and writes down a meeting place and time on a small scrap of paper—Christmas Day, early evening, in town.
Colin spends Christmas Day counting down the hours, his mum and dad enthusiastic about his date, while slightly unclear why the mysterious Ray picked Christmas Day. As evening falls, with his small dog in tow, Colin ventures into town, unsure what to expect, but eager to please the alpha male Ray, who also arrives with his dog, one double the size of Colin’s. It’s this meeting that sets their sub/dom relationship in motion, one where Ray calls the shots and Colin pleases. But this is no abusive partnership; it’s founded on an unspoken agreement that sees Colin fall head over heels for Ray and his close group of biker sub/dom friends. It’s a sexual awakening for Colin, and a transformational moment where he suddenly realises what he wants.
If all this sounds rather hot and heavy, at times it is, as Lighton swings open the closet door on gay sub/dom relationships and sex. However, in Pillion, the heat is matched with a wry sense of humour you could only find in a British rom-com. Pillion is serio-comical, sexual, saucy, and scintillating as Colin and Ray’s relationship unfolds, with both men facing transformative moments along the way.
In Melling’s masterful hands, we watch Colin slowly question his role with Ray through conversations with fellow sub Kevin, played by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters. But the turning point comes after his mum’s death, when he decides the rules at play need to change to satisfy his needs: he needs a day off, and he isn’t afraid to push the point. It is at this point that the ice breaks with Skarsgård’s Ray, as he lets Colin get a little closer, allowing him to explore the more tender elements of their relationship in a day full of fun, laughter and even the kiss he has denied Colin so long. This is Ray’s transformational moment, but I’m not about to divulge the ending here.
The spark between Skarsgård and Melling is what makes Pillion enthralling, tender, funny and intoxicating. Despite their relationship of agreed dominance and subservience, there is tenderness and love, as well as an unspoken need to protect one another. It may surprise you just how emotive and joyous these performances are, given the relationship portrayed and Ray’s unwillingness to engage his emotions in private or in public.
It’s a testament to the skills of both actors that they draw out these emotions through their spellbinding performances. Add Lighton’s assured direction and his gift for creating moments of sublime comedy among the butt plugs and beards and an ensemble that sees Hodge and Sharp light up the screen alongside the real-life Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club, and Pillion shines brighter than a platinum-studded choker collar left out in the sun. Is Lighton’s film one of the boldest and best gay movies of the past decade? You bet your ass it is!
Pillion screened at the BFI London Film Festival and arrives in cinemas nationwide on November 28.
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