This refreshing look at sub/dom relations from newcomer Harry Lighton is a gem, even if it could afford to dig deeper

Not one to watch with your nan, this refreshing and subversive ‘dom-com’ pops the hood on sado-masochistic relations among a group of leather-clad bikers. We follow Colin (played with verve by Harry Melling of Harry Potter Dursley fame), a nervous creature who lives at home with dad Pete (Douglas Hodge) and his cancer-stricken mum Peggy (Lesley Sharp). When not working as a traffic warden—a role that earns him a daily barrage of stick—Colin moonlights as a singer in a quartet.

Singing one evening at his town’s local pub, Colin spots the brooding and impossibly handsome Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who steely ignores the former’s request for a tip by refusing even to look up from his laptop to acknowledge him. Something seems to have caught Ray’s interest, however. As Colin stands at the bar later, Ray approaches to buy some crisps, and as his giant figure comes into view, emerging comically round Colin’s profile like a titan, he throws down a handful of change on the counter.

This is an unspoken test for Colin: if he’s interested, it’s down to him to count the change for Ray (mere dog’s work for the latter). Taken aback but enticed, Colin obliges. After a further test situated down a dark alley, where Ray gauges Colin’s boot-licking commitment to submission, the beginnings of a sub/dom relation get under way—a dynamic void of intimacy and based solely on BDSM practices.

And it’s a bona fide baptism of fire for Colin. Staying over at Ray’s for the first time, he is shocked to learn that he is to cook Ray’s dinner, standing behind him as he eats on the sofa (his dog taking what would be Colin’s place next to him). At night, he must sleep on the rug at the foot of Ray’s bed—a privilege he can enjoy provided he doesn’t snore. Through it all, Melling is the embodiment of a deer caught in the headlights, his big saucer eyes often stealing the focus, while none but Skarsgård could seamlessly exude the dom-daddy cool quite like he does as Ray. The chemistry between both could melt glaciers.

It all might be a shock, but Colin soon catches up and finds he likes this world, enjoys the sense of identity the chunky chain and padlock around his neck gives him—a tactile symbol of his belonging to a very different kind of priesthood. He has his head shaved, meets Ray’s fellow bikers—a group made up of mostly doms and a handful of subs, some of whom don pup garb and cock-cages. Together, they embark on a camping trip, where Colin witnesses various shades of BDSM dynamics. (There’s no rest for the submissive: one evening during a trip, Colin and a fellow sub, Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, lay bent over a camping table to be fucked when the desire strikes). 

Part of the fold, Colin gains a spring in his step. We glimpse that he’s more confident at work, allowing the jibes of irascible public members to slide off his back like water.  

Yet belonging to an alternative group like the bikers isn’t without its challenges. As their relationship grows, the harsh realities of their unique situation begin to surface. On his birthday, Colin’s mum is dismayed to learn that later he will go to Ray’s and cook dinner, and not the other way around. Colin himself is saddened when Ray coldly rejects his invitation to properly meet his parents; though he eventually acquiesces, during a sit down meal at Colin’s, things come to a head when Ray shames Colin at the table—leading Peggy to confront him. 

Struggling to sleep one night, Colin stands over Ray and observes the small key attached to a necklace around Ray’s neck—the corresponding key to the padlock on his own chain. When all is said and done, what is he getting from such a dynamic? What does it say about him to be part of one?

We begin to wonder the same of Ray himself. Next to his biker peers, he is by far the most dominant, the coldest in his treatment. When tragedy strikes in Colin’s family life, Ray can scarcely comfort him, so high are the walls of his identity as a dom. Indeed as well as offering a sensitive and real-feeling look into an overlooked community, Pillion isn’t afraid to test its limits and ask difficult questions: how sustainable is a relationship based on role play alone, one governed by rigorous and seemingly regressive power dynamics? At what point does the role play cease to be role play and become reality? Does having one “day off” a week, as Colin requests of Ray, and is denied, defeat the whole purpose? This latter question certainly catches a nerve with Ray, who we begin to suspect is perhaps hiding behind his dominant facade.

Pillion doesn’t seek to answer these questions—nor should it. Lighton’s aim here is to offer a refreshing and bold look at an oft-derided and little understood community, lifting a stone that has until today remained largely unturned. It is funny and tender, deeply conscious of its own subject matter and aware that it won’t be for everyone. 

I only wish Lighton had devoted more time to exploring the personal and psychological effects of Colin’s entry into the community before delving into its grayer areas. Our glimpse into his renewed confidence at work remains very much a glimpse. Meanwhile, witnessing Colin as a member of the group itself, interacting with other subs (when permitted), I wanted to glean just a fraction more from their lives—hear their stories, how their belonging to the group came to be and what it means to them. Otherwise, for a first feature film, Lighton disrupted a lacklustre film run last year with this moving, brilliantly crafted romance. And if it hasn’t already, this film should catapult Melling squarely into the limelight.