Erinkyan

Before we start, you have to let me get something out of my system:

RAY SUCKS. RAY SUCKS SO MUCH. OH MY GOD I HATE HIM SO MUCH HE'S THE ABSOLUTE WORST!! RAY YOU ABSOLUTE PIECE OF SHIT YOU SUCK SO MUCH I HATE YOU!!! OH MY GOD I HATE YOU SO MUCH!

Thank you.

Next important thing: I am a lifelong Leather man, but I am not a biker. I obviously have a lot of cultural crossover with bikers, and I've known a lot of gay Leather bikers, but I'm not one of them, and so anything specific to the biker part of the film is something I can only go on heresay on. I've heard a lot about gay Leather biker clubs, but I've never been in one, so I can't comment as to that part of things.

Okay. Let's get to it.

So, probably the biggest FAQ: "Hey Erin, is this movie realistic?"

Unfortunately, yes.

I have seen a LOT of relationships like Colin and Ray's play out over the years. Doms like Ray are (unfortunately) a dime a dozen, and unfortunately so are newly awakened subs that don't know shit like Colin.

Those relationships nearly always end after merely a few months, or even weeks. Just like the movie. They're not sustainable for the long term. There's no single way they end; it can go like it does in the movie but there's a thousand ways for a relationship to end.

Now some rare people DO genuinely likes and thrive in relationships like the one Ray dictates, and I'm not out to call em liars. I've met those people. They're happy, they're doing well. But sustaining that kind of relationship long term is INCREDIBLY difficult, and most people cannot do it, because people are people and have people needs. Not saying it can't be done, but it's rare.

And the thing is, Colin is pretty clearly NOT one of those people - we can see this because he pushes back. He asks for a day off. He asks to share the bed. He acts out when he doesn't get the attention he needs. Colin may not know what he's doing but he is at least trying to communicate his needs, even if he's not aware of the fact that that's what he's doing.

Ray, on the other hand. Ray is the kind of dom I warn subs away from.

Ray does not communicate. Ray does not take care of his property.

Oh except the bike of course.

The scenes with the bike washing were interesting and frustrating to me because there's a lot going on there and you can interpret it as kind of sexy, and I probably would have if Ray didn't suck in every other aspect, but unfortunately, he does.

Let me explain what I mean.

In the mornings, an alarm clock in the living room wakes Colin up. It's in the living room so that it draws Colin out towards the window where he can see Ray washing his bike. Ray is doting, loving towards his bike. He touches it with a care and affection that he never touches Colin with.

Now. This is kind of sexy, from a D/s perspective. A sort of "look how much I love this literal piece of property, see how much more I care about it than you, you are below my bike to me, that's your position" thing. That can be hot!

HOWEVER.

Ray spends the entire movie explicitly NOT caring for Colin. So instead of a fun bit of sexy degredation, these scenes show that Ray QUITE LITERALLY cares about his bike more than Colin. Which, to be clear is not INNATELY a bad thing, especially at the start of their relationship - the relationship between biker and bike is a very special one and I'm not about to claim otherwise.

But you can't show me those scenes in the context of this relationship in this movie and have me think it's sexy. I think it's sad. I think it's cruel. I think Ray is a piece of shit.

Ray does not care, not really. You could, I suppose, make an argument that he cares but he just shows it differently - but that falls apart for me because of a few scenes in the film. I won't bore you by going over each of them but I will tell you the exact scene(s) where I went from "oh my god, this guy sucks" to "COLIN DUMP HIM!! DUMP HIIIIIM!"

It was Colin's mother's funeral.

When the shot opens and I saw Colin sitting there all alone, I nearly fucken exploded in the cinema. It's good for everyone that I am a polite movie-goer because manners were the only thing stopping me from SCREAMING.

Colin and his mother were CLEARLY very close. And yes, she didn't like Ray, and that's awkward - but awkwardness means fucking NOTHING when someone in your care is grieving. And note I said "in your care" - you don't have to be in love with your submissive, but you DO have to fulfil your fucking duties as their carer, because that's what you fucking ARE. Your submissive, in TPE or almost-TPE situations like this one, is your WARD.

Ray not being at that funeral was fucking EMOTIONAL NEGLECT. He didn't even have to be inside - we could have cut to outside the church with him waiting there, maybe throw in a comment about how she didn't like him and so he didn't feel it was right to attend directly or something. That would have been fine.

But no. He's not there, and he struggles to even make small talk about it when they meet up again.

Now, to a degree, the film understands this, because this is the catalyst for Colin starting to act out. And of course he does! Of course he does! Ray sucks!! Ray has not been a good dom! The whole movie has just been Colin being swept up by a selfish asshole!

And again, the film does seem to understand this - I mean, there's a reason they don't end up together at the end. I mean Ray fucking ghosts, which is SO fucking cruel.

Which reminds me, hey - marketing teams? Hey guys? Why the fuck did you market this movie as a romance movie??? Why is this listed as a romance movie everywhere??

This is NOT a fucking romance movie?? For starters we don't get a HEA for the couple, only for the protagonist (and even then it's kind of a mid one), which by definition makes it not a fucking romance.

We also SKIP two of the most important romantic scenes in Colin and Ray's relationship. In vanilla relationship romance, you would expect a first kiss scene, right? (Which ironically we do get in this movie, even if it's at the end.) You would probably also expect, like, a big confession scene in a vanilla movie, where the couple express their feelings verbally for the first time. These are not cliches - they are important conventions for a romance story.

In Pillion, we see Colin wearing a heavy chain with a padlock around his neck, and we see him with a shaved head.

And we see NEITHER of those events actually happen. We just see a scene cut and whoops, there we go, there's a chain and shaved head now.

I cannot express to you, if you are not a Leather person, how fucking bullshit that is, if this movie wants to call itself a romance movie. It would be like not having that first kiss, like not having the confession.

Not showing the collaring scene is an absolutely unhinged decision. What do you MEAN you're just not going to show the very act that makes Colin Ray's? What do you MEAN you're just not going to show the very act that many of us make into full scale events on the level of a wedding because it's so important to us? Even if it was a private affair - which is definitely was with Ray, let's be real - that's totally fine, but we should still SEE it. Even if it was rough and careless like everything else about Ray's approach to this relationship, we should still SEE IT!! We should see him lay those chains around Colin's neck, we should see that padlock get locked. There should be eye contact (we know that's allowed in their relationship). There should be smiles. Colin should sigh happily. Then Ray would grab that chain and they'd fuck. C'mon. THIS IS NOT A CLICHE IT IS A CONVENTION. You made this whole movie, you have the gall to market it as a romance, and YOU DON'T FUCKING SHOW US THE COLLARING? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND???

The shaved head you MIGHT be able to get away with not showing, but this movie very clearly wants to be erotic and if you don't know that gay Leather people get turned on by head shaving you do not know us very well. Head shaving is an intensely erotic and intensely intimate act in almost every D/s relationship I've seen. It's a shearing back not just of hair but of personhood, it's an emotional expression of (well, a lot of things, not only this, but commonly) stripping someone back to a purer state, restoring them to factory settings, as it were. Taking away someone's individuality so that you can better mould them to your own specific desires (or to simply leave as factory standard - I mean drone stuff is certainly popular these days).

And this movie really does want to be erotic - something that personally I don't think it does particularly well. I was not turned on by this movie. The only thing erotic about this movie was the cinematography.

Which brings me to the one genuinely good thing about this movie: the cinematography. I was not lying in that paragraph. The cinematography in Pillion is AMAZING. The director of photography did an incredible job, and the sex scenes are definitely some of the best looking sex scenes I've seen in a movie. DEFINITELY some of the best gay sex scenes I've seen in a movie. Great job to Nick Morris, he was the MVP of this entire film.

In fact he was a little too good - I know Pillion's been getting great reviews, and I think it's just because the cinematography is really good and the acting is pretty good too. I think those two things have tricked people into thinking the writing and story is good. Because it's not.

I have learned that this movie is actually based on a novel, and I am gonna have to go read that book so I can find out how much of what I hate about this movie is the movie's fault and how much of it is the source material's fault.

But the thing is that I think the medium of a novel might make a lot of things I disliked about this movie a lot better. For example, a quick google indicates that it's written in the first person. This means that the shallowness of the characters other than Colin makes a lot more sense - Colin can't see into their heads, can't follow them when he's not with them, so of course we can't get as deep into them as we can into Colin.

Because, god, that's a thing - everyone in this movie is so ONE DIMENSIONAL. Colin is a pretty well rounded character, but of course he is, he's the fucking protagonist and the POV character. Although frankly even he could have used a little bit more fleshing out, a few more details, a little bit more personality. But overall, yeah, Colin's an acceptably deep character. But everyone else?? First of all, WHO else - the movie doesn't bother to linger on most of the people in it. There's basically only three other real characters - Colin's parents, and Ray. All three of them are as shallow as a sheet of paper.

Which is not to say they're all bad - I actually loved Colin's parents, they were another good thing about this movie. I loved how supportive they were (like, god, his dad driving him around all day at the end of the movie looking for Ray? what a great dad), and I loved how protective they were, and I loved that they did their best to balance those two things. Good parents. And - generally speaking - totally okay for them to be shallow characters. After all, (looks directly into the camera), the main characters will be interesting and deep enough to keep us engaged, right?

… RIGHT???

Ray is so fucking one dimensional he bores me to tears when he's not infuriating me. Like seriously we don't know or learn anything about this guy, he never expresses any fucking emotions or thoughts, all we know about him is that he's a gay biker dom and that's it. And this is sort of touched on in the story of the movie via the dinner scene, but keeping Ray distant from the characters and keeping him distant from the audience are two different things.

Again, if this is truly meant to be a romance movie, we need to actually buy in to the love interest. We need to give a shit about him. That's really hard to do when he's kept at arm's length from us the whole time.

Now, narratively, I think there's a few reasons for Ray being kept as shallow as possible and not even all of them are bad. I think a couple of the good reasons for Ray being kind of shallow as a character are

a) Mysterious Sexy Man, let us all imprint our fantasies onto a gruff Alexander Skarsgard and don't worry about him as a person, just look how sexy he is!

b) it doesn't hurt the audience as much (or at all, in my case) when Ray ghosts Colin at the end and they don't end up together.

Let me tell you, when we got to the end of the movie and they didn't end up together I was SO HAPPY. It was the first time I experienced joy in this fucking movie, was at the very end.

God. Does that kind of let you know how I feel about this movie? I did not enjoy this movie. And not in a fun "ooh this art makes me uncomfortable" way.

I spent the whole movie seething at Ray. He's such a piece of shit.

Listen, I'm a dom. I'm exclusively a dom. When the movie ended I had to turn to my partner and ask in desperation, "is Ray actually hot? Can you explain what's hot about him to me?" because I just legit could not understand the appeal and I needed a better placed point of view.

Because as a dom - Colin? The sub? Oh yes. Yes please. Give me that scraggly little man. Fuck Ray, give that boy to me, I'll treat him better. He's mine now, you don't deserve him.

Anyway, my partner explained to me that yes, Ray is hot - but he's "porn hot". He's the dom that you fantasise about when you're hard and horny, but you wouldn't want to actually be with in real life.

Now, that's fine for a movie, right? It's a movie, it's a fantasy too. And yes! You would be right! … except the "but not in real life" is supposed to come baked into the fact it's a movie, not something you feel or think about the CHARACTER HIMSELF. You're not supposed to consciously go "damn, hot, but hell no". You're supposed to go "damn, hot!" and then leave the cinema thinking about how hot the fantasy man on the big screen was - that's where the fantasy/reality line is supposed to be, it's supposed to be the fact you know it's fantasy, it shouldn't be built into the fucking thing, you know?

Ugh, anyway, I don't want to talk too much about Ray from this perspective because it's not my perspective. Like I said, I'm exclusively dom, so Ray isn't meant to appeal to me. But I can tell you that I certainly don't want to be anything like him and I fucking hope baby doms don't see this movie and want to be like him either.

God there's so much more I could talk about in this movie - I haven't even touched on how I hate the "day off" at the end and how Ray's entire personality basically changed for it, or how I actually do appreciate how much consultation went into this movie and that they let actual real Leather people play themselves in it, or how annoyed I am at how this movie can't decide what fucking genre it wants to be, or this or that or the other...

Unfortunately though I am still recovering from literally nearly dying last month so my stamina has worn out. Sorry.

If you take nothing else away from my opinion on Pillion, remember this:

RAY IS A PIECE OF SHIT.