Although based on the 2020 nov­el ​‘Box Hill’ by Adam Mars-Jones, Har­ry Lighton’s Pil­lion is most­ly unrecog­nis­able from its source mate­r­i­al, retain­ing only a few cru­cial details. Gone is the 1970s Sur­rey set­ting, along with the first-per­son nar­ra­tion and reck­on­ing with queer iden­ti­ty at the height of the AIDs cri­sis. Kept are the names – Col­in and Ray – and the latter’s ties to the local BDSM bik­er com­mu­ni­ty, but where Mars-Jones’ nov­el skewed heart­break­ing, this loose adap­ta­tion is broad­ly buoy­ant, as the mild-man­nered traf­fic war­den Col­in (Har­ry Melling) finds him­self entan­gled in a dominant/​submissive rela­tion­ship with the near mono­syl­lab­ic Ray (Alexan­der Skars­gård), a gor­geous unknow­able alien who seems to get exact­ly what he wants every sec­ond of every day with­out hav­ing to ask for it. And as unlike­ly as it seems when they first meet – one per­form­ing with his bar­ber­shop quar­tet in a pub, the oth­er in his bik­er leathers, not look­ing up from a stack of Christ­mas cards he’s fill­ing out – Ray wants Colin.

Col­in is flum­moxed by the atten­tion but imme­di­ate­ly game, accept­ing a writ­ten instruc­tion to meet out­side Brom­ley Pri­mark on Christ­mas Day, much to the con­cern of his well-mean­ing par­ents (who insist Col­in take the family’s long-haired dachs­hund with him for pro­tec­tion). What Col­in lacks in world­li­ness he makes up for in enthu­si­asm. Ray, unread­able, sees poten­tial, and quick­ly installs him in his spar­tan flat, where their sex­u­al rela­tion­ship begins in earnest. From here Col­in is induct­ed into a world of leather, lube and delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion; he takes to it like a duck to water.

Har­ry Melling has been doing con­sis­tent­ly great work as a char­ac­ter actor, par­tic­u­lar­ly in The Bal­lad of Buster Scrug­gs and Har­vest, but Pil­lion marks his first bona fide lead­ing role, and the del­i­cate bal­ance of Colin’s char­ac­ter is a tes­ta­ment to Melling’s skill. He’s a ner­vous, awk­ward sort, with a hang­dog expres­sion and one foot con­stant­ly in his mouth, but as he grows in con­fi­dence through his rela­tion­ship with Ray, Col­in comes into his own, under­stand­ing him­self bet­ter through explor­ing his sex­u­al desires. He’s the per­fect foil to Ray, a tow­er­ing mon­u­ment of qui­et machis­mo with just a glint of good humour, and the chem­istry between Melling and Skars­gård in their tricky tightrope dou­ble act is essen­tial to Pillion’s effec­tive emo­tion­al core.

While some of the weight of Mars-Jones’ nov­el is lost by updat­ing its time peri­od and giv­ing Col­in a more sup­port­ive fam­i­ly, the biggest mis­step comes in a changed end­ing, opt­ing for an ambigu­ous end to Col­in and Ray’s sto­ry. While the gen­er­al light­ness inject­ed in rip­ples across Pil­lion is to the film’s cred­it, the final act threat­ens to reduce the poignan­cy of the cen­tral rela­tion­ship by sug­gest­ing it’s quite replic­a­ble. Per­haps the inten­tion is to indi­cate that Colin’s life doesn’t end with Ray (while it may have start­ed with him) but the con­clu­sion under­mines the well-bal­anced mix­ture of ten­der­ness and tur­moil in both Lighton’s script and the two cen­tral performances.

Nev­er­the­less, Pil­lion under­stands the excru­ci­at­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of vocal­is­ing desire both sex­u­al and emo­tion­al, realised on-screen with some of the most erot­ic and unin­hib­it­ed sex scenes in recent mem­o­ry (with spe­cial cred­it to inti­ma­cy coor­di­na­tor Rob­bie Tay­lor-Hunt). The bold­ness, nuance and humour with which Lighton nav­i­gates BDSM dynam­ics as well as Col­in and Ray’s per­son­al and joint com­plex­i­ties results in a film that’s fre­quent­ly touch­ing and sur­pris­ing, less of an adap­ta­tion and more of a reimag­in­ing that com­pli­ments the source mate­r­i­al rather than repli­cates it.

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