A24 has never been shy about unsettling the safe zones of cinema. With Pillion, their latest UK-set feature, the studio hands the reins to first-time feature director Harry Lighton—and the result promises to be as tender as it is transgressive.
A Love Story That Refuses Labels
The story begins with Colin (Harry Melling), a shy suburban traffic warden who seems destined for a life of invisibility—until he meets Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a magnetic biker who leads a queer motorcycle gang. Their connection sparks quickly, but what unfolds isn’t a standard romance. It’s a relationship built on submission and dominance, intimacy and humiliation, and moments that blur the line between devotion and exploitation.
To Colin’s parents (Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge), it looks toxic. To outsiders, it looks dangerous. But inside the dynamic, something more complicated—at times brutal, at times breathtaking—takes shape.
Lighton himself describes the film as “about people questioning the values they’ve inherited.” That questioning runs deep here, unsettling not just how love is defined, but who gets to decide what love looks like.
Casting That Surprises and Disarms
Harry Melling, best remembered by some as Dudley Dursley but now a consistently fascinating screen presence (The Queen’s Gambit, The Pale Blue Eye), plays Colin with a fragility that hides flashes of stubbornness.
Opposite him, Alexander Skarsgård dives into one of his boldest roles yet. Known for embodying both gods and monsters (The Northman, Big Little Lies), here he becomes something stranger: a man who demands total submission yet somehow inspires devotion.
Adding to the intrigue is Jake Shears, frontman of Scissor Sisters, who appears as Kevin, a fellow sub teaching Colin the unwritten codes of Ray’s world. His presence adds a jolt of camp, history, and authenticity.
From a Cult Novella to A24’s Screen
Pillion adapts Adam Mars-Jones’ novella Box Hill, a slender, unsettling book that mixes comedy with degradation. Lighton keeps the nerve of the original but compresses its six-year timeline into a single turbulent year, shifting the setting to present-day London. The result is immediate and confrontational—less memory, more immersion.
Production designer Francesca Massariol grounds Colin’s suburban home in the everyday mess of British family life, while Ray’s house—sparse, sterile, unknowable—becomes a mystery in itself. Costume designer Grace Snell reimagines biker leathers not as Tom of Finland caricature but as something modern, sleek, and oddly vulnerable.
Why Pillion Feels Different
Most queer films that cross into the mainstream carry a certain polish—safe enough for festivals, packaged neatly for audiences. Pillion seems determined to reject that. There’s no ironic wink, no distance between character and desire. The sex scenes are not shorthand—they are storytelling, laced with contradictions: comedy and cruelty, freedom and restraint.
Skarsgård described it in three words: “lube, sweat, and leather.” But underneath the provocation is something sincere: a portrait of intimacy that refuses to be tidy.
What We Know So Far
According to A24’s official press notes, these are the details released so far!
- Runtime: 107 minutes
- Language: English
- Country: UK
- Distributor: A24
- Rating: Not yet rated
- Cast: Harry Melling, Alexander Skarsgård, Jake Shears, Lesley Sharp, Douglas Hodge
No release date has been confirmed, but expect Pillion to arrive on the festival circuit before wider distribution. If A24’s history tells us anything, it won’t be a quiet landing.
Check out some of the best A24 horror movies meanwhile, and don’t forget to subscribe to CineCinnati for exclusive industry insiders from the Hollywood and international cinema.
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