Cinema Review: Pillion (2025)
Directed by Harry Lighton
Written by Harry Lighton – Based on Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones
Produced by Emma Norton, Lee Groombridge, Ed Guiney &
Andrew Lowe
Main cast: Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharp, Jake Shears, etc.
Cinematography by Nick Morris
Edited by Gareth C. Scales
There’s a tender audacity to Pillion (2025), an erotic rom-dom-com that sneaks up on you with the gentleness of a confession. What begins as an off-kilter meet-cute blooms into something far more vulnerable: a rites-of-passage story about sexual awakening, self-recognition, and the courage it takes to accept pleasure without apology.
At its heart is Colin, played with exquisite restraint by Harry Melling. Melling has always been an actor of intelligence, but here he finds a new register—soft-spoken, watchful, quietly aching. His performance never reaches for easy beats; instead, it accumulates detail. A look held a fraction too long. A smile that arrives late. Colin’s desire isn’t announced; it’s discovered, moment by moment, and the effect is deeply empathetic.
Opposite him, Alexander Skarsgård’s Ray is all smoulder and swagger on first impression—an insouciant masculinity that seems effortless, almost cocky. But Skarsgård is doing something more interesting beneath the surface. The sexuality is undeniable, yes, but it’s armoured. Pain leaks through the cracks, giving Ray a bruised romanticism that complicates the dominant energy he projects. The push and pull between the two men becomes the film’s most potent charge.
Director Harry Lighton deserves enormous credit for navigating this tonal tightrope. His direction is fantastically nuanced, allowing intimacy and humour to coexist without deflating either. The film understands that eroticism can be funny, awkward, even faintly ridiculous—especially when it’s new—while still honouring its emotional stakes. The explicit moments are handled with confidence rather than coyness, lacing the heartfelt beats with risqué shocks that provoke gasps, laughter, and the occasional wince. The physical opposites of Harry’s mild-mannered traffic warden versus Ray’s macho biker also add characterful humour to the mix.
The contemporary setting, rooted in the London suburb of Bromley, is another inspired choice. This is not a glossy, aspirational London; it’s resolutely unglamorous, familiar, and quietly stifling. That ordinariness makes Colin’s awakening feel all the more radical, a private revolution unfolding in plain sight. Furthermore, strong support comes from Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge as Colin’s parents, whose love is real but imperfect, shaped by generational discomfort and unspoken fears. Their scenes add texture rather than judgment, grounding the film in a recognisable family dynamic.
Be warned: Pillion (2025) doesn’t shy away from explicit sex scenes or moments of leather-adorned domination (including BDSM), and those elements may provoke strong reactions. But they’re not there for provocation alone. Lighton uses them as part of the emotional grammar of the film, insisting that tenderness and risk, humour and heat, can occupy the same frame. Ultimately, Pillion (2025) reveals itself as something quietly radical—a deeply touching romantic comedy that treats sexual self-discovery with empathy, intelligence, and a disarming lack of shame. It lingers not because of what it shows, but because of how carefully it listens to its characters while they learn who they are.
The Cinema Fix presents 