Pillion Review: Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgard Dominate This Tenderhearted Romance

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Reviews of movies I love are the hardest for me to write. The challenge of listing the sometimes unquantifiable and imperceptible things that make a movie excellent is something I struggle with on the daily. And it's made even harder when discussing something like Harry Lighton's brilliant queer romance Pillion wherein the brilliance is in letting the emotions, characterizations, and the relationship at the center wash over you.

There's something so tender-hearted in a movie about a dominant/submissive relationship that should be ironic but, in the movie, makes so much sense. Couple that with superb turns by Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling and it's easy to understand why this was my number two best movie of 2025.

Colin (Melling) is a meek, quiet man who spends his days at a dead-end job and his nights singing in a barbershop quartet at the local pub. He finds himself drawn to Ray (Skarsgard) an equally quiet, though far more intimidating, biker. Ray finds Colin's "aptitude for devotion" worthy of making him the perfect submissive mate for him and the two embark on a relationship that sees Colin gaining far more confidence. But as their relationship continues, Colin starts to figure out what he wants, which puts him at odds with Ray's idea of their dynamic.

Adapting Adam Mars-Jones' book Box Hill, Lighton crafts a tightly wound story of the shifting nature of desire. How people enter into relationships with their own preconceived expectations, how those expectations change the longer we know someone, and what happens when you realize you are the one changing. This is Colin's story, but it's also Ray's, both of them constantly shifting and transforming into different versions of themselves throughout the narrative. And what happens when you've realized you're no longer the same person? Do you commit or run away?

If your only interaction with Harry Melling is him as the snivelly Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films, erase that from your memory. Colin is a shy, lonely man who's mother, in her desire to see him happy, ends up running roughshod over him. An awkward first date puts him in the position of having to be the one to sayh he's not interested, and while his mother's heart is the right place it's easy to see why he feels like he has no autonomy. When Colin sees Ray, that's when Melling's true talents shine. His eyes light up, it's the equivalent of a fireworks moment in a romantic comedy.

And who wouldn't fall for someone like Skarsgard. The actor is a true chameleon, able to give us dark and broody as quickly as funny and quirky. Here, he's prototypical brooding stranger, sitting corners in silence until he approaches Colin. The two share a look and the audience is more than aware that there's a reciprocal attraction. An awkward encounter in an alley upends so many of the perfect first times so often seen in feature films. Lighton eschews romance for an oral sex sequence that's authentic in all its imperfection and discovery.

In a landscape where Gen Z are regularly debating the need for sex scenes Lighton and cinematographer Nick Morris illustrate the power of them, the heady mix of desire and intrigue that make movies the perfect fantasy machine. But what they do is continue to craft something at the intersection of true and false. So much of the narrative is about power and Ray, despite his caring for Colin, uses sex as a weapon. A fun camping trip with Ray's biker buddies, and their submissives, sees Colin cast aside by Ray because of how physically weak he is. Later, during a group sex scene Ray proceeds to engage with another person, the camera focusing on Ray's utter lack of expression. There's nothing sexy or intimate in this moment, it's perfunctory, a plan to remind Colin (and possibly Ray himself) of his place in the relationship.

Skarsgard's good looks are similarly weaponized throughout the movie. Colin's friends, coworkers, and parents all express shock and surprise that someone like him has nabbed a man like Ray. And Skarsgard never presents Ray as god-like, but it's obvious he has a problem with intimacy. He grunts a "no" when Colin tries to sing along to Ray's piano playing. He refuses to let Colin sleep in his bed or even tell him anything personal about his life or career. In any other movie this would be the opening to a thriller, and Lighton emphasizes that they're all red flags. But they are never things that put Colin in danger and, if anything, he routinely pushes against them, desperate to learn about Ray's life so that they can move further in their relationship.

The tragedy, ultimately, found in Pillion is the all-too-real discovery of realizing the person you want to be emotionally intimate with just can't give that back. And yet Pillion is ultimately a hopeful movie. It reminds us, and Colin, that it's through the nature of experience that we learn about ourselves, and as Colin plaintively sings Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," that bears fruit.

Pillion remains one of the best movies of the year, one that is funny as it is relatable, romantic as it is trying. Melling and Skarsgard have a fabulous chemistry together. This is another one I can't wait to experience again.

Grade: A-