In 2020, the English writer Adam Mars-Jones published a slender, tough-minded novel titled Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem. It's narrated by a shy 18-year-old named Colin Smith, who falls for Ray, a hunky, leather-clad motorcyclist in his late 20s. They enter into a dominant-submissive relationship, in which Colin does Ray's bidding, sexually and domestically.
Mars-Jones doesn't sugar-coat any of it. The story takes place in the 1970s — not an easy time to be gay, let alone part of a gay BDSM subculture, especially with the AIDS epidemic on the horizon. And although rough sex is part of the characters' arrangement, Ray's behavior crosses the line of consent. Describing one of their first sexual encounters, Colin says, "What had begun as a rough seduction ended as, well, rape."
Now Box Hill has been adapted into a film by the writer-director Harry Lighton, who has — there's no way around it — lightened the mood considerably. The movie, which is called Pillion, is a dark-toned but wildly entertaining comedy, and the relationship at its center is a study in emotional neglect, but not physical abuse.
Pillion takes place in the present day, in the southeast London suburb of Bromley. Colin, played by the 36-year-old actor Harry Melling, is older, smarter, and more sexually experienced than his counterpart in the book. He's still a bit naïve, with a touchingly wholesome streak: He sings in a barbershop quartet and lives at home with his charmingly over-supportive parents, who just want him to settle down with a nice boyfriend.
That, alas, isn't in the cards. One night at the local pub, Colin locks eyes with that hunky motorcyclist, Ray, and is instantly smitten. The viewer will understand why. Ray is played by Alexander Skarsgård, who looks even more like a Nordic god than usual, with his immaculately chiseled form, his utter disdain for small talk, and his apparent imperviousness to cold weather. Even on a chilly December night, when they meet up for the first time in a side alley, Ray shows up in a chest-baring leather bodysuit.
From the controversial 1974 film The Night Porter to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and the kinky Nicole Kidman vehicle Babygirl, the movies have long been fascinated by dominant-submissive relationships and the intriguing — some might say intrinsic — connections between pleasure and pain. Pillion approaches the subject without judgment and with a great deal of sly humor.
Colin has what Ray calls "an aptitude for devotion," and before long, the two have settled into an odd routine. Colin becomes a kind of servant, cooking dinner most nights for Ray at his sparsely furnished duplex and sleeping on the rug at the foot of Ray's bed. Colin buzzes his hair short, rides pillion on the back of Ray's motorcycle, and starts hanging out with Ray's biker gang, many of whom appear to be paired off in similar relationships of their own.
The movie doesn't delve too deeply into this community, though we do learn some of the rules — submissives, for example, are seldom allowed to kiss their dominants. The sex itself is wild, if not terribly explicit, by the standards of certain HBO series, but Melling keys us in to Colin's feelings of exhilaration and surrender.
In time, though, he also shows us Colin's growing dissatisfaction: As he falls in love with Ray, he begins to insist on a bit more equity and attention in their relationship. His parents help strengthen his resolve; there's a terrific performance here from Lesley Sharp as Colin's mother, who has terminal cancer and wants to see her son in a loving, stable relationship before she dies. Needless to say, she doesn't care for Ray and the controlling, withholding way he treats Colin.
Skarsgård is terrific here as an impossibly gorgeous and impossibly stubborn object of desire, who lavishes more affection on his dog and his beloved motorcycle than he does on Colin. Skarsgård's performance becomes more revealing as the film progresses; we catch glimpses of the panic and insecurity beneath Ray's rigid attitude, and also, perhaps, his own fear that he's becoming more attached to Colin than he wants to admit. In the book, Colin and Ray's relationship comes to a tragic end. The film unsurprisingly moves in a more hopeful direction. Colin does have an aptitude for devotion — he just needs someone worthy of it.
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