Editorial note: Spoilers ahead for “Pillion.”
“Pillion,” the A24 “dom-com” where Dudley Dursley gets railed by Eric Northman, was the last movie I was expecting to write about for Hey Alma. It’s not exactly a Jewish film. It begins and ends at Christmas without even a single passing reference to Hanukkah – and no, I don’t know why A24 waited until February to release a Christmas movie, though I’d guess it’s because they just did a kinky Christmas release with “Babygirl” in 2024 and figured “Marty Supreme” was their best bet for the Jews-at-the-movies-on-Christmas crowd in 2025.
Also, best I can tell, the stars of “Pillion” (Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård), the writer-director (Harry Lighton) and the author of the original source novella “Box Hill” (Adam Mars-Jones) have absolutely zero Jewish background. Even so, the movie’s themes are relevant to Jewish viewers – and not only queer and kinky ones! You see, I’m convinced that “Pillion” is actually about the importance of observing Shabbat.
Colin (Melling) is a traffic cop and barbershop singer with no self-esteem and a desire to just follow orders. His mum (Lesley Sharpe) keeps trying to find him a nice boyfriend, but on Christmas, he abandons one of these arranged dates for a hook-up with Ray (Skarsgård), the sexy biker across the bar. This quickly escalates into a full-time Dom/sub power exchange relationship.
There's always a seat for you here. Hey Alma is here to make sure no one has to be Jewish alone. Your Passover gift keeps our community vibrant, our stories honest, and our space free for everyone.
Ray, it must be made clear, is a terrible Dom. He jumps into scenes with little preparation, gives zero thought to aftercare, and is generally unaffectionate and at times flat-out abusive towards Colin. Colin is willing to go along with it all, in part because of his disbelief he’s bagged such a good-looking Master and in part because Ray is skilled at dishing out small bits of kindness just when Colin might be about to stand up for himself. The film contrasts their dysfunctional relationship with glimpses of other couples in the gay biker BDSM scene who appear happier and healthier; in one sad scene, another sub expresses concern about how Ray never kisses Colin.
It’s Ray’s final act of kindness where the Shabbat themes come into play. Colin has suggested the idea of having one day off from doing all of Ray’s chores and following his every order, where they can just do “normal couple” stuff together. Ray first dismisses this suggestion out of hand, then agrees to it while pretending it’s his own idea. This day off is everything Colin wanted it to be. It’s also the last time he’ll see Ray, who gets up and leaves town unannounced.
The next Christmas, Ray’s on the apps looking for a new BDSM relationship, but this time he’s clear in communicating two hard limits: he won’t change his hair for anyone (his mum wasn’t a fan of him shaving his head for Ray), and he needs one day off a week from the D/s dynamic. Essentially, he’s invented the idea of Shabbat from first principles.
The idea of resting on the seventh day comes from the story in Genesis that God rested on the seventh day of creation. Rav. Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary proposes that God was still creating something, nonphysical, on this day of rest: perception (via Aish). Many Jewish sources, going all the way back to the Talmud (Beitzah 16a:12), discuss the idea that we receive a “second soul” on Shabbat. So we can understand Shabbat as a day of greater understanding. The week’s work makes rest necessary, while Shabbat’s rest gives the work meaning.
So it is with Colin’s personal secular Sabbath. Being able to spend one day a week with future partners without having to serve them as a sub offers him a window to clearer perception of what’s roleplay and what’s real – a chance to judge whether his masters’ behavior the rest of the time is lovingly strict or actually abusive. He gets a chance to see their “second soul,” you could say. Hard work can be rewarding – sexually or otherwise – but Colin comes to understand how the Torah had the right idea in that everyone deserves a break.
