Pillion

Harry Lighton adapts Adam Mars-Jones’s novella Box Hill into a film, delivering a queer coming-of-age story as unexpected as it is disarmingly romantic. Colin (Harry Melling), a timid young man in the British countryside, leads an almost insignificant life up until he meets Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a mysterious biker who introduces him to a relationship of dominance and submission. The film follows this relationship without moralizing, offering a clear-eyed gaze and tender understanding, blending humor with truth. It transforms what some might see as a “shocking” dynamic into a catalyst for a profound exploration of desire, loneliness, trust, the rejection of certainty, and the need for belonging. Constructing a seemingly asymmetrical love affair free of stereotypes, Pillion unearths, above all, an intimate love story, while portraying with striking honesty a side of the queer experience that we rarely encounter on the big screen.