Review: Kinky 'Pillion' captures the thrill of attachment even if BDSM is not your thing

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Successful romances star at least one looker.I don’t mean someone attractive.

I mean an actor who gazes at their scene partner with such delight that we swoon, too.Clark Gable was a looker.

Diane Keaton was a looker.The combined eyeball voltage of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is so powerful that it’s turned silly scripts into hits.Harry Melling is a late-blooming looker.

Onscreen most of his youth as the Muggle brat Dudley Dursley in the “Harry Potter” franchise, Melling is only just now getting to show off that talent in the funny-kinky “Pillion,” which puts him on his knees beaming up at Alexander Skarsgård’s 6-foot-4 biker as though this blond hunk was the sun.His Colin, a shy gay man who sings the high notes in a barbershop quartet, is so visibly infatuated licking Skarsgård’s leather boots in a dark alley that you believe he lusts for humiliation.

Colin has only just discovered that fact about himself.He’s yet to even learn this man’s name.

(It’s Ray.)Perhaps you’d like to be taken to dinner first, but “Pillion” is about Colin’s needs — specifically his need to please — and first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton challenges us to root for his bliss.This fetishy adventure is a minimalist romantic comedy in which submissive meets dominant, and submissive explores his physical and emotional vulnerabilities.

Marriage and a baby carriage are off the table; the journey matters, not the destination.Movies Part of an on-screen dynasty that includes his father Stellan Skarsgård, the “True Blood” and “Big Little Lies” breakout is approaching recent choices with care.“Pillion” is what motorcyclists call the passenger seat, at least in suburban England where this is set.

It’s a passive position compared to the driver, but still a cooler upgrade from where Colin starts the movie riding in: the rear of a sedan.Out the car’s bac...