'Pillion' Review: Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling Battle For Sexual Dominance in Canine-Inspired BDSM Romp

"Pillion" arrives in theaters this weekend with word-of-mouth that practically precedes it: leather, power games, and one of the two male leads whose animal magnetism could probably light a small city. On that level, the film delivers exactly what it promises. It is sexually charged, confident in its approach, and anchored by performances that understand how attraction and authority can coexist in the same glance.

Yet for all its pleasures and strong acting, director Harry Lighton's BDSM-inspired flick is also destined to divide audiences. Not because of what it shows, but because of what it struggles to articulate beneath the surface.

Colin (Harry Melling) is a socially awkward barbershop quartet singer whose life appears modest to the point of near-invisibility. He still lives with his parents and seems unsure of how to take up space in the world. He encounters Ray (Alexander Skarsgard) at a local bar, a biker whose presence is physically commanding. What follows is a relationship structured around hierarchy and control, one that Colin enters eagerly and with minimal apparent hesitation.

The film frames this not as a descent into danger, but as a sexual awakening.

Lighton has an intuitive grasp of how erotic discovery can feel liberating, even when it takes forms that general audiences might find unsettling. Early sequences pulse with nervous excitement as Colin tests the edges of a dynamic he doesn't yet understand. Even when this means that he is treated like a literal dog and servant, sleeping on the floor and cooking for the new man in his life. Melling plays all of this with curiosity and joy, grounding the film and preventing it from tipping into a spectacle for spectacle's sake.

Skarsgard leans into Ray's charisma with icy precision. This is a character who exerts control...not through raised voices or overt cruelty, but through certainty. Ray knows who he is and what he wants, and the film understands how intoxicating that can be. Skarsgard's physicality does a lot of the work, but it's the restraint in his performance that proves most effective.

Where the film falters is in its psychological ambition. It gestures toward questions concerning identity and agency, but it rarely lingers long enough to provide answers. Colin's submission to Ray is presented as empowering, yet there's little to no processing of the emotional cost of that new role. His internal dialogue remains unclear, leaving the audience at a distance from the transformation the film seems eager to convey.

Similarly, Ray is drawn with intention but not evolution. His rigidity is clearly meant to signify emotional damage or possibly fear of intimacy, yet these senses remain underdeveloped. The result is a relationship dynamic that feels dramatically rugged but psychologically thin.

When friction (not the good kind) occurs between the two men, the impact of those moments doesn't feel entirely earned. In the end, "Pillion" feels less like a fully realized exploration of power and desire than a vivid snapshot of one man's erotic awakening. Compelling, seductive, and entirely incomplete.