Pillion

 

Writer/director Harry Lighton's Pillion is a steamy BDSM tale of a handsome, taciturn biker named Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and a retiring but lonely parking patrol officer named Colin (Harry Melling) that manages to do much more than titillate and unnerve.

Those open to the rigid-then-shifting dynamic between these young men -- one a chilly monolith and the other a wounded ego -- might discover universal truths about the intertwining of identity and need.

That is, Lighton is proposing that we often become what we must to get what we want -- once we discover what that is.

Pillion, which is the name for the passenger seat on a motorbike, introduces us to Ray's tribe of dominants and their submissives in the South England town of Bromley without judgment or the gaze of the non-BDSM community. He makes clear these men are willing participants in humiliation, and, in fact, they are expressing a variety of love, even though Ray insists "this is not what this is about."

We also get to know Colin's loving and hugely supportive parents, mother Peggy (Lesley Sharp) and father Pete (Douglas Hodge), who are thrilled their younger son has found someone. But they quickly grow concerned about Ray's seeming lack of openness. Peggy, who is terminally ill, is worried that her son is being mistreated by someone he barely knows and whom she doesn't know at all. At a get-acquainted dinner, a surprising concession from the congenitally withholding Ray, Peggy confronts her son's friend, who responds by telling her to mind her business.

Fissures eventually develop in the relationship, leading to an ultimatum that both Ray and Colin regret.

No, Pillion's storyline, graphic nudity, and explicit depictions of sexual intercourse make it decidedly NOT for general audiences. However, looking beyond the leather and chains, one might find a relatable story about the lengths to which people will go to find "love" or something that approximates it.