PILLION directed by Harry Lighton (UK, 2025)
This movie is promoted as a comedy but I can’t say I saw much to laugh about. It’s not a heavy, soul-searching drama but, at the same time, it pulls no punches in the representation of adult sexual themes.
As a straight, white cis guy (he/him!) my knowledge of BDSM is confined to what I read about or see on screen. Typically, therefore, I have been conditioned to regard bondage, discipline and sado-masochism as the stuff of fantasy and/or perversion. In contrast, dominance and submission have a lighter, more playful character and the basis for innuendoes about pegging or women on top. Certainly, the majority of allusions to these practices in movies are commonly associated with cruelty and/or criminality.
For this reason, what goes on in Pillion is genuinely eye-opening and educational. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination and is far from being a conventional love story. It’s certainly not a romcom nor is it what co-star Alexander Skarsgård has casually referred to as a ‘Dom-Com’.
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This absorbing and uncompromising movie is the kind of a psychological thriller Alfred Hitchcock might have made if he’d been gay.
