Pillion: deeply uneasy, terribly exhilarating (review)
Harry Lighton reveals himself in a daring first feature, screenplay prize at Un certain regard, on the relationship between a biker and the young man he decides to put on the back of his bike.
In 1576, La Boétie spoke about voluntary servitude. Four centuries later, the British Harry Lighton illustrated the concept in a particularly first directorial gesture. uninhibited. We must give credit to César, or rather to the writer Adam Mars-Jones (Box Hills, 2020), for the original idea of this love story like no other between Colin, a ticket dispenser and a cappella singer in his spare time, and the knight in leather armor who came to save him from the monotony of his life as a thirty-year-old Tanguy.
Very quickly, as the asphalt passes under the wheels of Ray’s chrome steed (“pillion” precisely designating the rear seat of a two-wheeler), an imbalance sets in, materialized by the injunction of a domestic devotion, by a collar in the shape of a padlock or even by sexual antics like wrestling holds. It’s deeply uncomfortable, terribly exhilarating.
First, thanks to the casting: the large innocent eyes of Harry Melling, long associated with the greasy bangs of Harry Potter’s horrifying cousin, are contrasted with the gigantism of a cold, implacable, vampiric Alexander Skarsgård, reminiscent of the Norwegian’s debut in True Blood. There is also Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp as hen parents, a sample of a relational “normality” – straight, healthy and immutable, in health and illness.
However, if the film hits the mark, it is because in this study of deliberate submission, of claimed toxicity, the filmmaker does without comment, taking care not to place any moral prism on the parallel reality of these trendy bikers domination. And here the spectator is left to his own devices, groping in this darkness, forced to form his own opinion. This is a brilliant cinematic device.
By Harry Lighton. With Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgard, Lesley Sharp… Duration: 1h47. Released March 4, 2026
