Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharp, Jake Shears
Weedy wallflower Colin (Harry Melling) is letting life pass him by. That is until Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), the regal, impossibly handsome leader of a motorbike club, takes him on as his submissive. Ray galvanises Colin’s dreary suburban life, introducing him to a community of kinky, queer bikers and taking all sorts of virginities along the way. But as Colin moves deeper into Ray’s world of rules and mysteries, he begins to question whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is for him. Has he found his calling, or simply swapped one form of suffocation for another?
BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Harry Lighton’s feature debut Pillion is adapted from writer Adam Mars-Jones’s affecting 2019 novel Box Hill and won Best Screenplay in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. It’s a story of domination, desire and sexual discovery, with plenty of feel-good comedy afforded by the fish-out-of-water incongruity of Skarsgård’s gleaming Adonis in suburban Bromley, a spirited turn from Lesley Sharp as Colin’s affectionate, ailing mother, and a sweet sense of the transformative power of love.