Everyman
I did not necessarily expect my favourite film of 2025 to be an explicit love story about a pair of leather-clad kinky gay bikers. But Pillion treats its subject-matter with intelligence and tenderness: evidence, I suppose, that in the arts it doesn’t much matter what you do provided you do it well enough.It’s entirely a character piece — essentially a four-hander about Colin, the ‘sub’ (Harry Melling), Ray, the 'dom' (Alexander Skarsgaard) and Colin's parents (Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp). While it's undeniably explicit, it's not particularly anatomical: male flesh writhes at improbable angles, many rumps stick out of seatless leotards, but there is barely a glimpse of an actual cock. (It wouldn't matter particularly if there were, but as a matter of fact, there isn't.) Refreshingly, it doesn't try to inform or educate the audience: there are no speeches to camera about the importance of informed consent or reminders that in these kinds of relationships the apparent victim usually has the actual power. Maybe we are supposed to have worked all that out for ourselves by the end, but it's unstated.
But then, pretty much everything is unstated. From the first fumbling encounter outside Primark, when Colin has not very successful oral sex with Ray; to Colin's disastrous attempt to introduce Ray to his broad minded but straight-laced parents, the whole film is a study in inarticulate awkwardness. Hardly anyone says anything: perhaps the idea is that they communicate entirely through the medium of sex. Ray asks Colin back to his place; assumes that he will run errands and cook dinner, gives him permission to sleep on the rug by his bed and takes it for granted that he will come back again the following night. ("Or is there a booming market for Colin Smiths I’m not aware of?”) Before long, Colin has a padlock round his neck and is wearing a maid's apron. The fulcrum of the movie may be the moment when Colin -- in "real life" a parking attendant -- writes a romantic love-poem about Ray. Although Ray is callous and indifferent, he says, he is still my "king".
Granted, during the first act I did wonder if I had committed myself to ninety minutes of gay guys doing it to one another in increasingly improbable gymnastic permutations. (Not that there would have been anything wrong with that, necessarily, but perhaps I would have ordered a gin and tonic rather than a salted caramel milk shake.) But once the terms of the relationship have been established, the film starts to focus more on the people and less on their bottoms. Ray is, in fact, very kind to Colin after his mother dies. But when Colin tries to sleep in Ray's bed for a second time, and asks for a "day off" from the master/slave role-play, there is an explosive confrontation. In the end, Ray agrees to the "day off": and the couple seem to have a lovely time, going to the movies and walking in the park like other folks do. In a weird way, the resolution reminded me of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Both couples are playing a game which all parties understand the rules of: but both games are spoiled once those rules come out into the open.
Granted, during the first act I did wonder if I had committed myself to ninety minutes of gay guys doing it to one another in increasingly improbable gymnastic permutations. (Not that there would have been anything wrong with that, necessarily, but perhaps I would have ordered a gin and tonic rather than a salted caramel milk shake.) But once the terms of the relationship have been established, the film starts to focus more on the people and less on their bottoms. Ray is, in fact, very kind to Colin after his mother dies. But when Colin tries to sleep in Ray's bed for a second time, and asks for a "day off" from the master/slave role-play, there is an explosive confrontation. In the end, Ray agrees to the "day off": and the couple seem to have a lovely time, going to the movies and walking in the park like other folks do. In a weird way, the resolution reminded me of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Both couples are playing a game which all parties understand the rules of: but both games are spoiled once those rules come out into the open.
Many people have niche interests; and many people get up to naughty things in the bedroom that other people might not want to do. But I was kind of surprised that Colin and Ray would want their entire relationship to take the form of an extended sexual role-play; or that a group of adults would really arrange an entire camping trip during which they do nothing but bend over trestle tables and tie each other up. (And did someone really spend the whole weekend pretending to be a dog?) On paper it might sound fun to play your D&D character for twenty-four hours a day, but after a while all the fun would go out of it.
On the other hand, many "normal" (straight, vanilla) couples are effectively cosplaying nuclear families and staging highly stylised Christmasses and weddings in which everyone is more or less consciously taking on pre-scripted, artificial personae. Colin is sad when the game comes to an end, but ends up confident and articulate enough to find a new boyfriend to enslave and abuse him on his own terms.
This is a grown up movie in every sense: purely cinematic (although I understand it’s based on a book); cerebral, emotionally engaging, character driven and addressing uncomfortable material. If you don't think it's the sort of film you would like, it's almost certainly the sort of film you ought to see.
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