Pillion review – BDSM biker romp is the sweetest, sexiest, and most tender film you’ll see all year

We’ve entered a new cinematic age of kink. Between the popularity of the Nicole Kidman-fronted Babygirl and now Pillion – already a critical hit at this year’s Cannes Film Festival – the world of BDSM has gotten a revamp. Kink has come out of the shadows, liberated from the catacombs of the human psyche. Less Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), more Secretary (2002).

Pillion is one of the sweetest, sexiest, and most tender films you’ll see all year. In Babygirl, Halina Reijn went for nervous, fumbling behaviour on both sides of a dominant-submissive relationship. Harry Lighton’s deeply self-assured debut instead casts Harry Melling as docile parking attendant Colin opposite Alexander Skarsgård's quietly commanding Ray, who introduces him into the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (real members of which also appear in the film alongside the actors).