Isn't love the whole point... of everything?

Pillion: my very biased, very personal review

No need to say I love Pillion - action is always louder than words: I’ve watched it four times (Edit: 5th time on 2/12 at SF Castro Theater ). New York Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, the LA limited showing during Palm Springs Leather Weekend, and a DC special screening for MAL. That’s over 10,000 miles traveled for a movie. I’m so committed it’s basically been my personality for the past four months. I’m the self-claimed biggest fan of Pillion in the world - and my dear A24 Movie folks who did the bold move to bring this film to the US seem to agree. So yes, this review is very biased

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I’ve sat through Q&As with the director, actors, and editor. I’ve read a pile of reviews, including a few from kink folks with genuinely sharp insight. Over a dinner with my two close friends, a D/s couple who are on a similar level of committed power exchange, the conversation became almost dedicated to discussing the movie. At a moment I realized we have our own “default” perspective from inside: very few kinksters have actually lived 24/7 TPE, multiple times, for multiple years. What this film is showing is deeply personal and relatable from our very own real life experiences, and how we see it may be different from others.

So here’s a review from that angle that I haven’t seen online - from a lifestyle submissive’s perspective, very biased, very taking it personal. I’m not a film critic. This might be less a “review” than an interpretation from my seat.

Major spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the movie or read the book Box Hill it’s based on, stop reading now. Bookmark this page and come back once you have watched it. Yes, I know - the Feb. 6 release date is a long wait. It’s like an endless edging session that starts to feel like actual torture.

The Good Stuff

First, the sheer competence of the filmmaking.

Pillion contains porn-level explicit scenes - shocking, unconventional, intense - but also oddly authentic. It has rom-com lightness. It has a genuinely healthy, family-friendly parent dynamic. And underneath all that, it carries a love story that’s tender and heartbreaking. Those elements sound impossible to coexist. And yet the movie strikes an intricate balance among them. Like I wrote in my first Instagram post about it: this is a movie you’ll need tissues for - one way and the other. Harry Lighton did an amazing job writing and directing this film.

There’s a funny split about the film inside the kink community from what I have seen: one group says the film is too toxic to represent their lives; the other says it’s watered down for mainstream audiences. Both can be true. But if it’s a Hallmark kind of rom-com about living D/s happily, there would be no drama to successfully stir so many emotions and discussions; if it’s absolutely explicit about just our lives, the film would never see the lights - probably would even be banned on OnlyFans. The balance is the key. I understand as a community we are starved of proper representation in mainstream media, but we cannot expect one film to carry all the expectations in one shot. (EDIT: I wrote another piece specifically for this topic - Pillion: Is IT Abuse, or Just Not Your Kind of Love?)

Then the actors - perfect casting and chemistry.

Alexander Skarsgård is extremely sexy with depth. Harry Melling is uniquely compelling looking, and I mean that as respect, not shade. In one interview he mentioned another actor might’ve been offended by this kind of casting, but he had the self-awareness and confidence to take it on. That’s maturity.

And the performances (from my amateur eyes) are lovely: the smirk that can’t help but surface sometimes on Alexander’s emotionless face; Harry’s weedy submissive vibe; the way both of them can play comedy and tenderness without breaking the spell.

Also: the irony is delicious. They took a little bully from Harry Potter and made him grow up into an adult submissive getting “abused”. Feels like justice served.

Finally, here’s the cutting-edge, history-making part: Pillion portrays kink/BDSM lifestyle and power dynamics in a matter-of-fact way, and it uses real kinksters as part of the world. This might be the first time gay BDSM is not just present, but foregrounded and centered without apology and reluctance. The film carries the same attitude Ray lives by: it is what it is. Nothing to appease. Nothing to “explain.” Nothing to apologize for. Take it or leave it.

In the past, BDSM onscreen is usually either dark and murderous (Cruising, American Horror Story), or dramatic and “revealed” like a closet skeleton (Fifty Shades), or, in many occasions, a side gag meant to ridicule. Pillion is none of that.

Collared sub sitting on the floor at the bar. Soaking wet sub holding umbrella in the rain for his Dom and His friends. Locked chastity cage slipping out while changing into rubber. There’s no softening, no special lighting, no “this is taboo” music cue. It’s presented like day-to-day life - because, for us inside the community, it is. I didn’t even notice the ass-out singlet until the muggle audience burst into laughter during the wrestling scene.

That desensitization - that normalization - is what we need. And it may be this movie’s most valuable contribution. In that sense, it’s making history, and we’ll probably need years to fully realize its impact.

The Bad Stuff

There’s no way Colin could write that much within Grindr profile’s 255-character limit. As a British film, they should have used the home-grown Recon instead.

Other than that… no much.

It Matters to Me, Profoundly

In the Hyatt lobby during MAL, someone asked me a good question: You’ve watched it so many times, and you still skipped part of a rare social opportunity, maybe the biggest leatherman gathering of the year in US, just to rewatch a movie. So it must relate to you deeply. What is it?

First and foremost: Colin. Watching him feels like revisiting my own intense, extreme, sometimes toxic TPE relationships in the past, through his life on screen. And like a properly contained play session, it’s a safe way to revisit something traumatizing and make it therapeutic. It brings up not only nostalgia, but also a sense of strength and pride in me.

I think every sub will see some version of themselves in Colin: a people-pleaser, desperate to be seen, chosen, loved, trying to find purpose and self-worth through servitude and devotion. The subtitle of Box Hill is literally “A Story of Low Self-Esteem.” His pursue of self-esteem is satisfied by his aptitude of devotion that he’s proud of: being useful, offering service, becoming indispensable.

He apologizes for everything he can’t do - can’t deepthroat without gagging, can’t take the pain from anal, can’t win the fight in the lake. He prioritizes Ray’s needs and tries to meet them in every way - the beer bottle is never empty at the dinner table, the grocery shopping list means more than his birthday wishes.

But people-pleasing doesn’t get our deepest need met eventually. It’s just the way we learned to exist and survive, and at its core, it can become manipulative. When Colin starts trying to express needs, he does it the only way he knows: hesitantly, with bargaining, backpedaling, emotional leverage (his mother’s decline - which Ray calls out), and finally with desperate self-harm - at that breaking point, to get permission to grieve, to get the intimacy he’s never actually received.

I see myself in that, painfully. I weaponized depression and tears in a past relationship to get the care I wanted. I didn’t know a better way out.

On the other side, as many people in the community know: the sub holds enormous power in a D/s relationship. Once submission and consent are withdrawn, the whole construct collapses. Master Ray becomes merely “Raymond” - half naked, barefoot, screaming, chasing his little motorbike thief with powerless rage, and failing.

At the symbolic stop sign, after a brief joy ride in underwear, calling other people wankers instead of being called one, Colin apparently realizes how fucked up it’s become and retreats into self-punishment on the cold stairs like a lost puppy coming home. But a line has been crossed. Everything has changed.

The film is ultimately Colin’s story. His growth is summarized in that Grindr profile: here’s what I offer, here’s what I won’t allow, here’s what I’m looking for. I do wish the final scene let Colin look a little more confident, more proud as a sub, as this time he’s choosing who and how he submits to, instead of handing over a blank check with “whatever you want, really.”

Now - Ray… well well well, the impossibly hot embodiment of a testosterone god (European style). I suspect many Doms secretly want to be Ray, while also being very loud in public that they’re not a toxic Ray. They rightfully disown Ray from Their class, but unfairly disown the film with him in it.

He needs a bigger motorbike as two pillions want to be on it :P. My dear friend David is the one to be blamed for starting all this madness - He kindly shared his extra NYFF ticket with me knowing I was the kind who would be “crazy enough to fly coast-to-coast just for a movie”.

I gave Ray too much pretty privilege at first, like I did for some people in real life, as many gays would do. Only after more viewings did I start seeing him clearly once the shine came off. But let’s be honest - who wouldn’t first fall for Ray on the first sight? They cast a disarmingly sexy actor with that smile, those eyes, tall and muscular, then gave him an astonishingly convincing prosthetic cock with a PA (which costs $20,000 - or pound? - to make). I literally could not speak in sentences when Alexander put his hand on my shoulder while posing for photos with me and my friend in NYC’s film reception. If I were Colin, I’d probably follow him to the dark alley and let him do anything he wants to me too. Cannot blame Colin for falling for that.

I don’t think Ray is a monster. The big debate that always comes up first after viewing is about consent and abuse - did Ray coerce Colin into submission? To me, not really. But did Ray commit something unforgivable by abandoning Colin the way he did, making it an emotional abuse? Absolutely.

In the movie, Colin always has a choice. Ray leaves him a location (after trying his obedience with the coins). Colin chooses to show up. Colin follows him into a dark alley and says “whatever you want” - a giant red flag for a newbie, yet still a consent from an adult. He returns with a completed shopping list. He could’ve walked away at any point. He also has a loving family and a safe home to retreat to. The “do you give?” moments happen after a consent, becoming a part of a breaking-in and training process.

It’s fantastic for the film to build Ray as a complicated and controversial character. He’s stoic in life, coffee is no good or bad as long as it gets him caffeinated. He almost certainly didn’t choose Colin because of attraction, but because of utility and low maintenance he saw in Coin - kind of selfish. He’s unapologetic about his lifestyle (reminding me of Brian in Queer as Folk somehow), yet keeping his past a total secret. He breaks in a sub at full throttle from the beginning, raising concerns of abuse, but not being blindly reckless. When Colin is clearly in pain during the first anal scene, Ray aborts without being asked to. He breaks his Dom character to take care of Colin after his meltdown - clumsily as he doesn’t know how. Ray uses mind games and triangulates. He turns to another sub for a blowjob, dangling his cock right in front of Colin, but skipping him first - I remember the NYFF audience let out an audible gasp at that scene, disbelieving the cruelty in it. But after that, beside the bonfire, when Colin draws a heart in the air with the amber branch, Ray’s face remains unreadable, but his eyes go deep.

My read is that Ray is a severe avoidant attacher - yeah, I probably have watched too much pop psychology content in my recent healing journey. His enigmatic charm comes from a private life he keeps to feel safe. The sudden disappearance of Ray after intimacy gets too real for him is just textbook avoidant discard. It’s actually the most logical and believable ending that’s consistent with his behavior pattern. I’m glad the film doesn’t take the book’s cliche ending to kill Ray in a motorbike accident. Reportedly a scene was filmed where Ray and Colin talk to end their relationship after the “off day” kiss. Fortunately it got cut out. An avoidant would never volunteer to sit through an emotionally loaded conversation to give proper closure - a painful lesson learned from life experience for me too.

The D/s structure itself may be Ray’s way of keeping emotional distance, using protocols as a wall. He’s not even necessarily gay - the female name tattoo, the ring on his neck, seem to hint a heterosexual past. The minimalistic apartment, the beer bottles everywhere (which disappear after Colin moves in), the obsession of his bike that he must wash himself like making love to it, all look like a stereotypical straight dude. Then his choice of Colin would make a lot of sense - a gay guy, physically unattractive - the least possible one with whom he would develop an emotional bond. And sex - that’s about power. Kissing? Gross. But as a dog owner, he should’ve known better - love, even not romantic but the kind to a pet, will inevitably grow. It’s just what humans do. The armor he tries so hard to keep on to avoid vulnerability being exposed gets crakes through time.

I don’t think Ray had decided to leave before the kiss. Alexander has mentioned multiple interpretations of his own - sadistic punishment, or a departure gift. My read is simpler: the kiss pushes Ray over the edge (“one kiss is all it takes…fall in love with me”). Either he feels defective (“I can’t give what he needs”) or overwhelmed (“this is not what I want”), he makes the typical avoidant choice: withdraw, go silent, disappear without a trace. This isn’t to excuse him. The damage is real and deep. Colin is running around desperately looking for him with his collar still locked around his neck. That’s maddening to any ethical Dom, heartbreaking to any devoted sub.

What It’s Really About

Some people say the movie fails because it doesn’t show a “healthy” D/s relationship, and therefore might harm how vanilla audiences view the community. I don’t agree. The haters will hate regardless. Curious, open-minded people can see through the drama and still recognize the universal theme: attachment, power, need, boundary, betrayal, grief - relationship stuff. Not kink stuff. Human stuff.

Colin’s arc is painfully relatable. There’s the early clash between social norms and sub identity, the disbelief at sleeping on the floor or not sitting down at meals. Then submission gives him purpose and pride. He becomes unshakable at work. He finds belonging in the biker group. He grows from a weedy boy into someone cool. Aren’t those what we look for in a relationship - becoming a better version of ourselves?

And then Colin asks for more, as a side effect of personal growth. When he sheepishly brings up the idea of a once-a-week off day, audiences often giggle at his awkward behavior (again, great performance, Harry). But for me, it hits like a hammer every time. It breaks me into tears every time. It’s the most emotional moment for me in the whole film, deeper than the discard. Under the bargaining and cushioning, he’s begging for love - a kind of love that may not fit the arrangements, and may not be what the other side is willing or capable to give.

When an opportunity presents itself for Colin to express his needs, he doesn’t know what to do with it initially. His muscle memory as a people-pleaser leads him to propose a motorbike ride that he thinks Ray would like. But throughout that off day, everything in their protocol-guarded dynamics gradually collapses - sub poaching popcorn without permission, sub making sexual advancement, sub overpowering his Dom talent wise and physically.

For me, the core tension may be unresolvable, hence regrettably sad: the unequal construct of D/s power exchange, and romantic intimacy that seems to demand equality. And yet, Ray bluntly says something at dinner that feels like the whole thesis: what’s best for your son might not look like a vanilla relationship, and it’s not for others to judge. There may not be only one way towards happiness.

We kinksters often need the power imbalance to find structure. We give and receive unconditional trust to feel safe and secure. We find purpose and meaning in service and protection. We may never kiss in a relationship, but it’s nonetheless a deepest kind of bond a human can experience. We just look for love in a more extreme form.

So when audiences walk out, instead of fixating on the shock value of wrestling or the picnic, I hope what sticks is Colin’s ultimate question, the one that cuts through all these, as though “incredibly trite” as Harry Lighton calls it:

“Isn’t love the whole point… of everything?”