Cheekily taking its name from the tiny rear passenger seat of a motorbike, Harry Lighton’s Pillion suggests a salacious but superficial look into an erotic underworld, and its power imbalances. Yet, what could have been a throwaway kinky Queer romance defined by cheap thrills, manifests as an uncannily tender, touching portrait of self-discovery and personal growth.

Though visceral and unfettered in its depiction of various carnal exploits—full of endless spanking, bootlicking, and bowed head-bobbing—Pillion mines a rich vein at the cross-section of pain and pleasure, finding powerful agency in an act of seeming submission.

Harry Melling stars as the timid, meek Colin, a parking enforcement officer struggling to find connection and himself, all the while the death of his terminally ill mother looms. Enter Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), the leader of a kinky, leather-clad biker gang who whisks him away from his pub barbershop quartet and into a life of control and coercion. As Colin cooks, cleans, and serves Ray’s every wish, he not only relishes a newfound intimacy but also reckons with his burgeoning sense of identity.

Lighton and cinematographer Nick Morris conjure an ethereal adult fairytale. Cold, intense bouts of sweaty, wordless fornication give way to a flurry of swooning compositions that see Colin enraptured by Ray’s dreamy but slippery form and feel. It’s a visual juxtaposition that gorgeously emulates Colin’s internal struggle—whether to continue believing in a fantasy that doesn’t exist or to finally acknowledge his needs.

As the unsustainable and unhealthy direction of their relationship comes into focus, Pillion morphs into a quietly devastating tale of self-acceptance, in which Colin learns to set his own limits and resist being made a monolith in a subculture that’s often treated as one. As Lighton’s film finds freedom in giving away control, it intricately illuminates the power in acknowledging one’s limits.

Pillion deftly resists beating such revelations over audiences’ heads, maintaining an authenticity and earnestness that filters into the layered performances. Skarsgård’s piercing stare and terse voice—which trades words of affection for blunt requests (“Buy yourself a Butt plug”)—routinely commands the frame, with his sex-icon presence infiltrating moments that he’s not even a part of, as he keeps Colin at an arm’s length. Yet it remains Melling’s film, with his textured, lived-in cadences instilling life into his deeply felt arc.

In a cinematic sea of skin-deep erotica, Pillion refuses to make its vision of submission and domination a punchline. As it finds rare honesty and compassion in the threads connecting sex, control, and identity, it also obliterates our misguided notions—one thrust at a time.

Pillion Releases Feb 13th.