Pillion (2025)

Love, Power, and Two Wheels - Pillion review by griggs

It begins with a meeting that feels almost fated: a quiet, sheltered young man, played with touching openness by Harry Melling, crosses paths with Alexander Skarsgård’s commanding biker. What unfolds is part escape, part initiation, as Melling’s character is swept into a world far beyond his own.

At first there’s a rush of exhilaration, a sense of discovery that carries him along. Yet the film resists easy reassurances. Consent isn’t foregrounded in any obvious way, leaving the relationship shaded by uncertainty. Skarsgård brings both allure and unease, his authority never entirely free of risk.

Hovering in the background is the figure of Melling’s mother, whose illness sharpens her intuition. She sees the dangers that her son, in his longing, cannot. Pillion is a striking, often beautiful film—challenging in places, tender in others—about the blurred lines between liberation and vulnerability, and how desire can both open doors and close them.