Of all the Harry Potter kids, arguably none has had a more fascinating post-Potter career than Harry Melling. The former Dudley Dursley has spent the last decade stacking his CV with collaborations with the likes of James Gray (The Lost City Of Z), the Coen Brothers (The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs), and Scott Cooper (The Pale Blue Eye), establishing himself as a fearless character actor in the process. In In Harry Lighton's upcoming A24 dom-com Pillion, based on Adam Mars-Jones' 2020 novel Box Hill, Melling plays a meek gay man who submits himself to the dominant leader of a motorbike club (Alexander Skarsgård). For bare arses, butt-plug references, and a strangely endearing BDSM meet-cute, check out the first trailer for the movie below;
Cheekily set to the dulcet tones of Peggy March's 'I Follow Him', this first trailer for Pillion really doesn't give away a lot about the, er, ins and outs of Lighton's movie — but it sure does set the playful tone for what its writer-director's feature filmmaking debut has in store. As Melling's mild-mannered Colin chirpily tells a colleague who can't believe he's landed himself a hunky biker boyfriend, "I have an aptitude for devotion." We'll say! Seconds later, we see Colin looking on jealously as Ray (Skarsgård) pats his sofa for his dog to sit on; by the end of the trailer, the duo have wrestled in ass-less singlets and Ray's sending Colin off to the shops to fetch a cavity-expanding tool. You (probably) wouldn't get that in a Richard Curtis rom-com now, would you?
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Having played to rapturous applause at the Cannes film festival earlier this year, Lighton's movie — which, for all its kink and comedy, also looks to be a poignant tale of self-discovery — certainly has our curiosity, and our attention. We'll find out whether Melling's latest is, cinematically speaking, a very good boy (or Babygirl, if you rather), or whether it's destined to have us shouting out our safe word before the credits roll, when Pillion hits cinemas on 28 November.