- Something Lasting and Unforgettable: Robert Duvall (1931-2026) (February 16, 2026)
“Duvall never plays the same character twice, and he makes other actors look good. He brings a quality to his listening, his reactions, that charges a scene even when he’s not talking.” – Roger Ebert on Robert Duvall
Another titan is gone. They seem to be falling with more frequency these days. Following in the footsteps of Gene Hackman, Diane Keaton, Robert Redford, and the many more we lost in 2025, today the news broke that one of the strongest pillars of one of the most important eras of film history is gone. Robert Duvall passed away yesterday “surrounded by love and comfort” at his Virginia ranch, according to his wife Luciana.
It’s hard to overstate the legacy of Robert Duvall. Just the breadth of his output alone makes him an essential name in any retelling of film history as he worked for seven consecutive decades starting in the 1960s. Over that span, he won an Oscar, four Golden Globe Awards, two Emmys, a SAG Award, a BAFTA Award, and more. He was nearly as essential to the stage as he was to film and TV, appearing in vital productions of Wait Until Dark and David Mamet’s powerful American Buffalo.
From the minute he appeared on screen in Boo Radley in the beloved adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, there was a presence to Robert Duvall that was undeniable. He won his Oscar for “Tender Mercies,” but he just as easily could have taken home Academy Awards for a dozen other films: “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The Great Santini,” “The Apostle,” “The Conversation,” “Network,” “The Natural,” “Sling Blade,” “Crazy Heart,” “The Natural,” “A Civil Action,” and “Rambling Rose.” Watching those 12 films alone would give one a solid marathon of American filmmaking from the ’70 to the ‘90s. Duvall was a support beam for the American film movement.
Born to a man who was a Rear Admiral and a woman who was reportedly a relative of General Robert E. Lee, Robert Selden Duvall always seemed to have a bit of military authority in his on-screen presence. Everything changed for young Duvall when he enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre under the legendary Sanford Meisner, where Duvall’s classmates included James Caan, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Hackman.
Like a lot of actors of his era, Robert Duvall began his career on the stage, reportedly taking a role in a Long Island summer theater production in 1952. He worked consistently on the stage in the New York area in the ‘50s, and his most notable role off-Broadway in this period was in the original production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge with Dustin Hoffman. He made his Broadway debut in Wait Until Dark in 1966 and played Teach in the first Broadway production of American Buffalo. It’s an incredible part that would be played in later productions by Al Pacino and William H. Macy.
Robert Duvall transitioned to television in the ‘60s, appearing in numerous hits of the day like “The Untouchables,” “The Outer Limits,” “The Fugitive,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and a great episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “Miniature” in which he plays a museum goer who discovers that a dollhouse has living residents. When he falls in love with the female of the dollhouse, things get even weirder. It doesn’t quite stick the landing, but it’s easy to see the way that Duvall holds a camera even this early in his career in 1963.
The story goes that none other than Horton Foote saw a young Duvall in a production if his The Midnight Caller in 1957 and he’s the one who recommended him for Boo Radley in 1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (and would later write the part that would win Duvall his Oscar). The recluse in the town of Maycomb, Alabama, Radley is a character who reflects acceptance of outsiders in Lee’s book and the adaptation, a figure who represents the folly of judgment. Radley ends up saving the lives of Jem and Scout Finch, and Duvall makes an impact in the film with limited screen time.
There were small roles in big films in the ‘60s, including parts in “Bullitt” and “True Grit,” but Duvall’s prime came relatively late, in his forties, in the 1970s. There were few major American filmmakers of the era whose work wasn’t grounded by Duvall, including Robert Altman (“M*A*S*H”), George Lucas (“THX 1138”), John Sturges (“The Eagle Has Landed”), Sidney Lumet (“Network”), and, of course, Francis Ford Coppola, who cast Duvall as Tom Hagen in a little movie called “The Godfather,” which earned Duvall his first Oscar nomination. He would, of course, appear in the sequel, along with Coppola’s other ‘70s masterpieces “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now,” which won him BAFTA and Golden Globe awards.
Going into the ‘80s as one of the most acclaimed character actors in the world, Duvall would eventually get his Oscar for Bruce Beresford’s “Tender Mercies,” the story of an alcoholic country singer. Roger Ebert wrote in his Great Movies essay on the film, “It contains one of his most understated performances. It’s mostly done with his eyes. The actor who shouted, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!” here plays a character who wants to be rid of shouting. The film itself never shouts. Its title evokes its mood, although this is not a story about happiness. “I don’t trust happiness. I never did, I never will,” Mac Sledge tells Rosa Lee, in a scene framed entirely in a medium-long shot that possibly won him the Oscar.”
The roles would literally never stop from here. In 1989, he appeared in what many still consider the best TV mini-series of all time, “Lonesome Dove,” which he told the Los Angeles Times was his favorite role. He won a Golden Globe for the part.
Robert Duvall really maintained remarkable control over his career for the last four decades of his life, a model of how to use fame to be selective with roles. He refused to return to “The Godfather Part III” because he wasn’t getting paid as much as Pacino. He wrote and directed himself to an Oscar nomination for his breathtaking work in “The Apostle.” Other highlights include “Days of Thunder,” “Rambling Rose,” “Falling Down,” “The Paper,” “Sling Blade,” “Deep Impact,” “A Civil Action,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “We Own the Night,” “Get Low,” “Jack Reacher,” “The Judge,” and “Widows.”
Robert Duvall wasn’t a typical Hollywood presence. When you think of him, it’s not on red carpets or late-night talk shows. It’s on screen. It’s the characters who you can see thinking, feeling, and reacting, often men who believe themselves impenetrable from the world being proven otherwise.
As Roger said, “It’s mostly done with his eyes.”
- Short Films in Focus: The 2026 Oscar-Nominated Shorts (February 16, 2026)
The Oscar-nominated Shorts programs continue to attract audiences who are either looking to complete their Oscar viewing list or just curious cinephiles seeking works from new voices from around the world. This year’s crop is a mostly solid bunch and difficult to predict. There are three English-language crowd-pleasers in the Live Action category (those always win), two kid-friendly shorts in the Animated category (same), and four films in the Documentary category that examine the personal toll of the tragedies that surround us and that are produced by major media outlets (New Yorker, HB,O and Netflix). I’m usually good at narrowing down the winner and am often right, but this year the Academy voters made it difficult, which makes the challenge more interesting and more fun. So, I can’t really help you win the night at your Oscar party contest. All I can do is tell you which ones are my personal favorites.
LIVE ACTION
“Butcher’s Stain” – An Israeli grocery store employee (Omar Sameer) gets accused of taking posters of hostages down in the employee breakroom. One person claims to have seen him do it, but the details are vague. Did he do it? Should he be fired for it if he did? I happened to watch this the same evening as the documentary short nominee “Children No More: Were and Are Gone,” and the films echo one another as they explore the complexities of protest and perception. The film works best when focusing on the workplace mystery, but the coda feels underdeveloped and would benefit from a longer form. Directed by Meyer Levinson-Blount. (26 min.)
“A Friend Of Dorothy” – An elderly woman, Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes), leaves an inheritance to a young man, J.J. (Alistair Nwachukwu), whom she met after he lost a football in her front yard. The movie flashes back to how they met and how they eventually formed a deep friendship, during which she encouraged him to make acting more than a hobby. This one will warm the hearts of many voters who will appreciate its simplicity, as well as a couple of recognizable names (Stephen Fry plays the executor of the will). It’s the most sentimental film of the bunch, which helps put it in good standing to win the award. (22 min.)
“Jane Austen’s Period Drama” – The tone is set right away with this one, as stock characters from Jane Austen novels are given names like Estrogenia Talbot (co-director Julia Aks) and Mr. Dickley (Ta’imua). There is also a precocious little sister named Vagianna (Nicole Alyse Nelson). Mr. Dickley is about to propose marriage to our heroine when, suddenly, she starts bleeding (get the title now?). Mr. Dickley is clueless as to why. Should she lie to him about what causes this? The film feels inspired by “Barbie,” cheerfully putting the plight of womanhood front and center as the men around them walk around befuddled by their behavior, all while the film tries anything for a laugh. Stick around for the entirety of the credits and listen to the lyrics of the closing song, as well as the credit for a certain Academy Award-winning screenwriter who has dabbled in this genre before. I don’t mind saying that this one is my favorite of the bunch, and I’m glad I watched it last. Directed by Julia Aks and Steve Pinder.
“The Singers” – One night, in a little bar with a lot of history, a group of working-class men who probably hang out there regularly start an impromptu singing contest for the coveted prize of a one-hundred-dollar bill. Egos take hold of most of the men in the place, as many of them argue about who can sing the best. A short that boasts an uncommonly rich soundtrack, which includes a brief snippet of “Das Rheingold,” as well as a few standards sung with varying degrees of greatness. Who will win? That, of course, is not important. Some may find it hard to warm up to the film at first, as we hear and see many conversations taking place, many in inarticulate, hushed tones, but once the story kicks into gear, audiences will find themselves attached to the piece as a whole, if not to any singular character. It has the Netflix muscle behind it, making it a likely winner. Directed by Sam Davis. (15 min.)
“Two People Exchanging Saliva” – A hugely ambitious short with chapter breaks, world-building, and beautiful black-and-white cinematography. This French offering has been appropriately described as a bent version of Todd Haynes’ “Carol,” by way of Yorgos Lanthimos. In this world, we eventually gather that exchanging saliva with someone carries with it a penalty of death, so when a first-time sales clerk in a shopping mall named Malaise (Luàna Bajrami) feels an attraction to one of the store regulars named Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), the societal stakes become more and more dangerous with each flirtation. Directors Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh keep us a bit baffled throughout much of the first chapter, choosing to reveal their characters rather than provide exposition about the world they’ve created, one loosely based on the absurdities of our current state of affairs. It won’t be hard to see the allegory, but the overall journey is worth the 36-minute running time, with exceptional performances throughout.
ANIMATED
“Butterfly” – Inspired by French Olympic butterfly swimmer Alfred Nakache, who gained international prominence in 1931 and was booted out of the Berlin Olympics and eventually sent to a concentration camp. Florence Miailhe’s gorgeously textured film sums up his life in a dreamlike fifteen minutes, giving us an overview that amounts to just as much substance as a feature film would have done, but with the added bonus of some beautifully rendered images to be seen this year in any of these programs. The moving brushstroke style of animation always commands my attention in shorts like these, but the narratives can be frustratingly vague. That’s not the case here. Miailhe, who has a personal connection to this story, keeps everything clear and mesmerizing. (15 min.)
“Forevergreen” – This one might remind viewers of last year’s Best Animated Feature winner “Flow” with its wordless storytelling of animals in nature trying to survive the elements, but really this is a film about a friendship between a lost bear cub and a tree that nurtures it throughout its young life until the bear decides he has no use for the tree anymore. The jerky animation style works well when combined with the unique look that does not favor photorealism. The characters still feel alive, and the animators imbue them, as well as the story itself, with genuine emotion. It overreaches in spots, mainly due to the score, but the end result is irresistibly warm and pleasing. The most kid-friendly of the bunch, which means it has a good shot at winning. Directed by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears. (13 min.)
“The Girl Who Cried Pearls” – Charles Dickens meets Roald Dahl in this fable about a girl who, yes, cries pearls, a greedy pawnbroker who sees their monetary value, and a homeless boy who brings him the pearls in exchange for money. The film is told in flashback and narrated by Colm Feore, who plays a young girl’s grandfather telling her the tale. Like “Butterfly,” the texture of the animation is incredibly striking. The characters look like marionettes without strings, and the dilapidated surroundings have a tangible and lived-in quality. Although the characters’ mouths don’t move, the expressions on their faces tell the story beautifully. My favorite film of this block. Directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski. (16 min.)
“Retirement Plan” – Domhnall Gleeson narrates this gem that plays out the list we have all made of all the great things we’ll all accomplish when we retire. It all seems so doable until it’s not. This film reminded me of Bernardo Britto’s short films, with its concise storytelling, quick editing, and attention to detail. More than that, though, writers John Kelly and Tara Lawall capture a similar melancholia, steeped in the inescapable familiarity of everyday life and its limitations. Never mind whether or not any retirement plan is even affordable; those last twenty or so years of anyone’s existence are exciting and frightening at the same time, and this film conveys that conflicting feeling beautifully. Directed by John Kelly. (7 min)
“The Three Sisters” – This one has a “Tripletts Of Belleville” vibe (minus the soundtrack) as three sisters, who live in a house on a remote island, rent out one of their rooms. A big, burly sailor becomes their tenant and so much more. Your mileage may vary with the animation style–simple 2-D animation with very little detail in the faces or expressions–and how that will help or hinder our engagement with it. It doesn’t do much for me. There’s no dialogue, save for the sailor’s “Ha!” every time something, or someone, gets him excited. It’s full of sight gags and whimsy, but there’s not much of a lift to it. It certainly has its charm in spots, though, and I dug the closing credits. Directed by Konstantin Bronzit (14 min.)
DOCUMENTARY
“All the Empty Rooms” – CBS News’ Steve Hartman has been reporting on school shootings since 1997. For the past seven years, he’s been working on a piece about kids’ bedrooms. He has three left to visit and document, along with his photographer, Lou Bopp. Hartman has always been a feel-good reporter, one of those people who files a story of an inspirational do-gooder at the end of a newscast to help people feel positive about the world again. This project feels more appropriate and urgent to him, and the film follows him as he visits the empty and untouched bedrooms of four lives tragically cut short. There’s a delicate balance here between making the movie too much about Hartman and not about the deceased kids, and director Joshua Seftel keeps the balance in check. It’s a moving film about memories and how they fade away through time. The physical objects left behind keep us connected to them, be it a basketball, a pile of laundry, or a photo collage. (35 min).
“Armed With Only A Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud” – So many echoes of “All The Empty Rooms” in this, mainly about the idea of photographers and journalists using everything they have to document the most tragic corners of human existence. Brent Renaud’s death at the hands of Russian combatants in Ukraine made national headlines. Renaud was fearless in his pursuit of truth while documenting the very real lives of survivors in Iraq in 2003, Haiti in 2010, the violent streets of Chicago in 2017, and Ukraine in 2022, just to name a few. The film flashes back to the films he made about these people and the devastation that surrounded them, while also following his brother, Craig, who has to transport Brent’s dead body back to America.
Craig also directed this film and made a wise choice in not editing Brent’s footage in any chronological order, thereby putting every one of Brent’s destinations on equal footing and emphasizing that Brent went everywhere, no matter how dangerous, because that’s who he was. Some might find the narrative a bit messy as it jumps around, but since Craig was alongside Brent much of the time, perhaps a nonlinear approach mirrors how he sees and experiences his memory of his brother. A loving tribute, nonetheless. Directed by Brent Renaud and Craig Renaud. (39 min.)
“Children No More: Were And Are Gone” – In Tel Aviv, a group of organizers holds silent vigils in the city streets and parks every Saturday for all the children who have died in Gaza. They don’t speak or chant. They simply hold pictures (if any are available) that say the child’s name, age, and “was and is no more.” Passersby hurl slurs and counterprotests in their direction, demanding to know why they do not hold pictures of the hostages. This is not that kind of protest, of course. Theirs is a plea to all of humanity. The film conveys their message while also exploring the dangers of expressing it and whether it gets across. In the end, the film does not have all the answers, but how could it? Instead, it effectively puts the viewer in the uncomfortable position of attending a vigil like this and enduring the provocations from the heated onlookers. What would you do in that situation? Directed by Hilla Medalia. (30 min.)
“The Devil Is Busy” – This one takes place at a Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, GA, where we first meet the head of security, Tracii, as she sets up for a busy day at the clinic. It’s a highly stressful job, of course, because there could always be an anti-abortion protester hiding somewhere who has a deadly plan. She knows the protesters by name and knows some of their histories. We also get to know the operators and doctors who work there and the stress they face every day. Mostly, we remember Tracii, who goes to work every day knowing there’s a chance she won’t make it home. “The Devil Is Busy” is an effective overview of a day in the life of a women’s health clinic three years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Prayer works in some situations, but for many women, it isn’t enough. Directed by Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir. (32 min.)
“Perfectly A Strangeness” – Palermo, Roberto, and Palaye are three seemingly random donkeys wandering through the desert who find an abandoned observatory that can see deep into the universe. Alison McAlpine’s visually expansive, meditative, and wordless film will remind viewers that documentaries can take multiple shapes and sizes. It’s the kind of film I love to program at the Chicago Critics Film Festival, the kind that immerses the viewer into something otherworldly, best experienced in a darkened theater. Some might question its validity as a documentary, but I prefer to accept it for what it is. While I would not go so far as to say it’s the first of its kind (I’ve seen many shorts like it), in the case of this year’s Oscar nominees, it’s the one film that goes against the grain in every single way. (15 min.)
- “Train Dreams” Wins Big at the 2026 Independent Spirit Awards (February 16, 2026)
On Sunday afternoon, exactly a month before the 2026 Academy Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards were handed out and Netflix’s “Train Dreams” was the big winner for the night, taking home prizes for Best Feature, Best Director (Clint Bentley), and Best Cinematography (Adolpho Veloso). Netflix also dominated the TV side of the event with the awards juggernaut that is “Adolescence” taking home most of the major prizes. Other big winners at the show hosted by Ego Nwodim included Rose Byrne for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Eva Victor & Naomi Ackie for “Sorry, Baby,” Alex Russell for “Lurker,” and “The Secret Agent,” winner for Best International Film.
All the winners can be found below:
Best Feature: “Train Dreams”
Best Director: Clint Bentley, “Train Dreams”
Best Screenplay: Eva Victor, “Sorry, Baby”
Best First Feature: “Lurker”
Best First Screenplay: “Lurker”
John Cassavetes Award: “Esta Isla (The Island)”
Best Breakthrough Performance: Kayo Martin, “The Plague”
Best Supporting Performance: Naomi Ackie, “Sorry, Baby”
Best Lead Performance: Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Robert Altman Award: “The Long Walk”
Best Cinematography: Adolpho Veloso, “Train Dreams”
Best Editing: Sofia Subercaseaux, “The Testament of Ann Lee”
Best International Film: “The Secret Agent”
Best Documentary: “The Perfect Neighbor”
Someone to Watch Award: Tatti Ribeiro, “Valentina”
Truer Than Fiction Award: Rajee Samarasinghe, “Your Touch Makes Others Invisible”
Producers Award: Tony Yang
Best New Scripted Series: “Adolescence”
Best New Non-Scripted Series of Documentary Series: “Pee-Wee as Himself”
Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series: Owen Cooper, “Adolescence”
Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series: Erin Doherty, “Adolescence”
Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series: Stephen Graham, “Adolescence”
Best Ensemble Cast in a New Scripted Series: “Chief of War”
- Love and Monsters: Three Films to Enjoy on Valentine’s Day (February 13, 2026)
Why have horror and romance complemented one another so seamlessly since the dawn of storytelling? It can be scary to put one’s heart on the line, especially when falling for someone whom you don’t know in their entirety. They could be Prince Charming—or a blood-sucking vampire—or, most frighteningly, both.
With Valentine’s Day coming up, I’d like to recommend three movies I’ve recently seen, which could ostensibly be categorized as horror pictures, but on a deeper level, are really about love. Two are re-imaginings of monsters who routinely made guest appearances in my childhood nightmares, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.” The third contains a more human monster, one who leaves her fiancé, Matt (played by Kevin James), at the altar. (BUT no judgment, is she really a monster?) Though it’s technically a romantic comedy, what could be more horrific in this situation than being the groom-not-to-be?
Sometimes we like our love stories to be sweet, complete with a “meet cute” where a boy and girl fall in love, get married, and have a family, but we know life isn’t always like that. Charles and Daniel Kinnane, the co-directors of “Solo Mio,” begin their picture by showing us all of the pleasant events leading up to the doomed wedding of Matt and Heather (Julie Ann Emery). They appear to be so in love that we are surprised when she strands him on their wedding day. He, however, decides to fly solo to Italy anyway, which was supposed to be their honeymoon destination, and that’s where most of the story unfolds.
Even with the theme of a broken heart, the movie has a sweetness and freshness, perhaps because it largely takes place in Rome and its beautiful surrounding countryside. Perhaps it’s my own memories of watching horse races in Sienna and listening to opera in the hillsides of Tuscany. Or perhaps it’s simply the fact that I was rooting for Kevin James to come out of this okay. Is it a great film? Not really. This may sound strange for me to say, but for me, it doesn’t matter how one would rate certain movies. Sometimes you just want to see good things happen to good people, and in the case of “Solo Mio,” that alone makes it worth watching.
As a child, I was scared of three monsters—Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man—in part because they all had human qualities. The least scary monsters for me were the amorphous creatures like the Swamp Thing or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. A character like the Wolf Man is frighteningly real. The fact that he has no control over his evil actions after he sprouts fangs under a full moon makes his plight all the more hellish.
I could never have imagined that after all of these years, I would see new imaginings of Frankenstein and Dracula that were so exciting. But in the hands of master filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro with “Frankenstein” and Luc Besson with “Dracula,” my interest was piqued. Like The Wolf Man, Mary Shelley’s original character of Frankenstein’s monster was a deeply tragic character, brought back to life against his will and branded abhorrent by a world with which he only wanted to connect.
Nominated for nine Oscars, Del Toro’s epic adaptation remains true to Shelley’s text while casting “Euphoria” star Jacob Elordi as one of the most sympathetic—and certainly the most seductive—variations on the monster to date. While treated with cruelty by his creator (Oscar Isaac), the tenderness he receives from Frankenstein’s soon-to-be sister-in-law (Mia Goth) forms the heart of the picture. As in Shelley’s novel, the film’s first half is told from the perspective of Doctor Frankenstein. Once the monster takes over the narration duties midway through, the picture comes to life with even greater passion.
In his four-star review, our critic Glenn Kenny wrote that Del Toro “spins out the tale in ways that make the movie not just jarring and frightening in the best horror tradition, but heartbreakingly poignant, expanding the humanity James Whale achieved for in his classic 1930s “Frankenstein” pictures […] Elordi is marvelous in conveying the monster’s intelligence, sensitivity and, yes, inherent gentleness—a shot of him holding and petting a mouse is quietly wrecking—but he puts across the power and rage beautifully as well.”
The same could be said of Caleb Landry Jones’s tour de force portrayal of the title role in Luc Besson’s new screen adaptation of “Dracula,” which, in my opinion, is the most romantic of the three titles in this article. It is romantic in the sense that it highlights the kind of love that you hope you will find one day—you meet a person, and they fall for you, and you fall for them—and nothing will ever come between the two of you. The kind of love that will last forever and ever—even though you don’t foresee it continuing for centuries. The picture begins four hundred years after Dracula lost the love of his very long life, Elizabeth, in 1480. When two intriguing women suddenly materialize—the saintly Mina (Zoe Blue, daughter of recent Ebertfest guest Rosanna Arquette) and the decidedly less saintly Maria (Matilda De Angelis), the vampire’s appetite goes into hyperdrive.
Almost any version of “Dracula” would make for appropriate Valentine’s Day viewing since the Count embodies, at his core, the forbidden sexuality that his puritanical targets strive so desperately to suppress. What I appreciated about Landry’s performance, and the film in general, is how it makes his lovesickness so tangible, so relatable, that one can almost taste it.
“Frankenstein” is on Netflix; “Solo Mio” and “Dracula” are in theaters.
- Willing Participants: Harry Lighton and Harry Melling on “Pillion” (February 13, 2026)
In a Valentine’s Day season where Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” seems the go-to date night movie for most couples, along comes A24 with some curiously fitting counterprogramming: Writer/director Harry Lighton‘s brazen, thorny, but deceptively sweet kink romance “Pillion.” Described as a “dom-com” in most of the studio’s marketing materials, “Pillion” charts the furtive romance between a leather-clad dominant, played with smoldering Tom-of-Finland assertiveness by Alexander Skarsgård, and a timid, inexperienced submissive played by Harry Melling, in modern-day London.
It’s tempting to reduce “Pillion” simply to its raunchier, more transgressive sexual elements: More than lurid scenes of Melling’s Colin kneeling in front of Skarsgård’s Ray in a dark alleyway to use his tongue in more ways than one, or a sexually-charged wrestling bout in assless singlets, so much of Lighton’s film expresses the curious normality of the D/s relationship Colin and Ray find themselves in. Colin quickly discovers, as Ray describes, an “aptitude for devotion,” which means that all of the acts of service and submission Ray demands (from sleeping on the floor to cooking all of his meals) are things that Colin deeply enjoys.
As with its source material, Adam Mars-Jones’ melancholic 2020 novella Box Hill, “Pillion” isn’t shy at poking holes at the flaws in Colin and Ray’s kink dynamic: There’s little discussion of boundaries, no safe words, and little healthy communication. And yet, in Skarsgård and Melling’s tender, unconventional chemistry, and Lighton’s deftly light touch, there’s a warmth to be found among all the padlocks and leather jackets and sleeping on the floor. It’s not the kind of love story that lasts, necessarily. But it’s one that Colin, and potentially even Ray, need to go through to find what they truly need.
Sipping tea in a hotel room before an advanced screening in Chicago, Harrys Lighton and Melling sat down with RogerEbert.com to discuss the challenges in adapting the caustic “Box Hill” to a sweeter incarnation, the psychological hurdles inherent in depicting the dynamics of a dubiously-toxic dom/sub relationship, and the one prop that gives us a clue into Skarsgård’s interior life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I’m really curious about the process of adaptation from the novella to the film, as there are a lot of differences, not just in time period, but in tone. What attracted you to the book, and how did you want to adapt it?
HARRY LIGHTON: Two things: The first was the subject of an innocent going into a world of transgressive sex, I think. But I made a couple of shorts which touched on similar areas, and I was looking for something else in that space. Then, the film’s tone is undoubtedly different from the book’s, which whiplashes between humor and sincerity, sometimes from sentence to sentence. I thought that was an interesting cocktail to try to translate into film.
But I knew I wanted to warm up the novel a bit. The novella is probably slightly crueler to Colin, both in terms of the way it describes him and the experiences it puts him through. There’s a categorical rape scene in the novella, which I think colors the rest of the narrative. The question I really wanted to ask was, is this relationship good or bad for Colin? In the novella, I firmly came down on the ‘no’ side, because of the fact that there was a higher element of Stockholm Syndrome, there.
Harry [Melling], when you got this script, and you built your own understanding of Colin as a character, how much did that process of adaptation hit you? Was it the case of building a more transformative experience for Colin than the explicitly abusive one in the novella?
HARRY MELLING: I read the novella after the script, obviously, and read it quite soon after, if I remember correctly. As Harry said, there are differences in terms of tone. But what was useful was that the novella is in the first person; it’s in Colin’s head. So there are certain aspects of an interior life I could steal, for lack of a better word, and transpose that into Harry’s script.
Whenever I’m working on something, I find that those things sometimes start out very useful and then become less so. In this, I found a really good starting point: using the book alongside the script soon drifted into the backdrop of what I was exploring.
The thing that made me leave the novella behind a bit was the movie’s comedic world. As Harry said, I think the film is warmer; the novella is funny, too, but in a different way. So my homework was really to get my head down and honor the narrative beats Harry had set out in the script, and try to make them as good as possible.
Pillion (A24)
This isn’t your first recent role in which your character explores queerness for the first time; in “Please Baby Please,” your character is on a similar journey of sexual and queer discovery. What attracts you to those kinds of characters?
HM: I think there’s obviously some crossover. When I come to a role, I always look at it as a separate beast; I don’t have that strategic sort of brain. So what attracted me to both those roles was that they’re completely unique. I hadn’t read anything like “Please Baby Please,” and he’s an interesting character navigating the complex negotiation between the masculine and the feminine, which I found fascinating. And [Colin] is very much on the road to discovering what love means to him. They both felt like very unique, powerful stories. But I don’t think “I’ve done that, so now I should do this.”
I was also thinking, especially in the parts where you get to perform in a barbershop quartet, of the segment of “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” where you, too, are performing for tips to unsuspecting audiences. So many of your characters are performers in a lot of respects.
HM: That’s true. Something I thought about recently is that, when my character is performing in “Buster Scruggs,” it’s bold; it’s committed. And the barbershop quartet is certainly something [Colin] feels comfortable in. This is a world he feels he can excel in. But then, off that, he’s a very different creature. That’s the same for the “Buster Scruggs” character; when he’s alone, he’s very muted. I don’t think he says anything other than the speeches. So those contrasts, those differences, have always interested me as an actor—how someone could be one thing in a particular environment, but in another environment be something else.
Of course, there’s another entity not here who’s a major element of the film’s fabric: Alexander Skarsgård as Ray. Going back to the novella, his Ray is a departure from that version. He’s a decidedly non-British Ray, which lends him a strange exoticism. How did you approach building the character around him and acting alongside him?
HM: It was amazing. We had no time whatsoever beforehand; we’d shot a week of the family stuff, and then Alex flew in. I think he was in Toronto doing “Murderbot,” but he flew in on the following Sunday. We had to rehearse the wrestling scene to be shot the following day. So we literally shook hands, started jumping on each other, and got to it.
In hindsight, albeit not by design, it was a fantastic way of entering the process: You’re not establishing a backstory, or going, “You know the scene where I’m by the piano, and you’re playing it? Maybe we should think about this!” Which means that, two weeks later, you have that conversation in your head and you’re trying to reach for something that might not be there. It was a great way of working, and with someone like Alex, who is fearless and always going to change things up, and will always be there with you in the scene, it’s just very easy. You can very much keep it alive and keep testing each other on the day, and hopefully get some good stuff for Harry to use in the edit.
Harry [Lighton], how did you work to build that chemistry with them?
HL: I didn’t, really. I thought long and hard about the casting, as that’s most of the work. To try to create the right environment. Part of creating chemistry is perhaps not letting things stultify when you’re shooting, so making sure there’s enough room to stay in the present tense during filming is important. I tried to encourage an environment where they could change things up from take to take and tweak things to keep it feeling live.
Pillion (A24)
When it comes to filming the more intimate scenes of sex and kink with Colin and Ray, there are so many different ways to express what are fairly transgressive acts for cinema. You’re not letting Ray hang hog on screen, necessarily—
HL: Hanging hog, does that mean dick out? Because we see some hog.
Well, yes, but there are some strategic cutaways, as it were.
HL: My strategy was that I never wanted it to feel like we were panning away from the explicitness of the material. I wanted it to feel committed to honoring the truth of this type of sex. But I also didn’t want to remove the audience from that sex, but not beat them over the head with the shock of it. One shot, which I’ve talked about quite a lot and did shoot, was a super close-up of the hog, as you’d say.
The Prince Albert.
HL: Exactly. And once we were playing around with it in the edit, the test audiences kept laughing when we cut to it, in a moment where I wanted them to be concentrated. The same with Colin holding his breath as he gives Ray a blowjob. It was always a question of how to thread the needle between diluting the sex and being emptily provocative.
Harry [Melling], on that note, playing those scenes as a submissive, it must be an interesting exercise to play submission and even the physicality of giving blowjobs and bottoming.
HM: I think so, especially when it’s so new. That’s the thing I found so fascinating, Colin’s courage to do everything for the first time, which is what I really wanted to get across. Whether it’s a blowjob in an alleyway or licking a leather boot, all of these things are new territory for him. So I just wanted to make sure that was alive, as well as the want to do it, to get it right. Because that was very important, you know, to make sure that Colin is a willing participant. He really wants to do a good job at this. All those sprinkles of narrative moments were important—the glee, the thrill he gets from it.
You always get the sense, too, that Colin is trying to figure out Ray a bit. And as viewers, we’re also trying to figure out Ray. What was the negotiation from a writing and directing standpoint, for how much you wanted us to know about Ray?
HL: I knew that I didn’t want there to be any explanation in Ray’s background for the way that he is. I didn’t want to pinpoint, “Okay, this is something that happened to him when he was sixteen or nine or whatever that explains the way he is.” I wanted it to be perfectly possible that he’s just kinky because he’s kinky.
But I did want there to be moments where we see beneath this hard, macho embodiment of a sexual fantasy to something more vulnerable. So my conversations were with myself, but also with Alexander when we were shooting, about how we could provide those chinks in Ray’s armor. So the audience knows there’s something psychologically complex at work beneath this performance.
The one real indicator we get for Ray’s interior life, so to speak, is the [Karl Ove] Knausgård book [My Struggle], which he’s reading when he’s with Colin. How did you pick that tome?
HL: There’s definitely an insight to be read into that. I think that Colin probably reads an insight, for sure. I like the idea that, in addition to indicating his geographical roots, “My Struggle” is a famous work of autofiction. So it seems to me a fun irony that Ray was reading a book in which someone has laid bare their life, warts and all, even though he’s so resistant to that kind of autobiography in a personal context.
HM: I also love the fact that halfway through the film, Colin’s reading “My Struggle” too, in bed with him. He’s probably reading it to glean anything about this guy. “Does Ray also do that?” Because information from Ray is obviously not forthcoming, he’s looking into any clues about this person.
It also gives an indicator of Colin’s occasional desire for some of the elements of a more traditional relationship—being able to share interests, that kind of thing. Which feels like the ultimate journey Colin goes on, being the tale of a sub who figures out his boundaries and how to express them. As you said, it’s a lighter and sweeter film, but one that’s honest about the difficulty of first loves, even in this kink context.
On that note, I want to ask about the “day off” sequence, which, for me, is the most psychologically charged of them all. There’s a feeling that Ray is potentially getting back at Colin for all of his prodding for normalcy by saying, “Okay, you want a day off, you’re getting a day off.” What was it like to play the joy and tension of that sequence?
HM: I love the way you saw it, and I think it can be a big “Fuck you, Colin.” But I love that the day off, for so many people, can be so many other things. Some people think it’s very genuinely Ray trying it out to see if it will work for him, as opposed to being something he’s planned to make a point.
I love that the sequence houses all those things alongside, the finale of it, where they’re on the hill, and you have the kiss. Again, that moment can be so many different things. The whole day-off sequence, albeit leaning into some romantic tropes, also contains so many different definitions of what’s actually going on. Is he scared? Is he trying to prove a point to Colin?
What do you hope audiences get out of this kind of transgressive take on a love story, whether they be gay or straight, kinky or no?
HL: I hope they just find it a great ride. Above all else, I think the film is one you can have fun watching. It’s a film that generates a loud audience; when you watch it, people like laughing and crying and gasping and doing all the things I like watching movies together with people for.
HM: I hope people who don’t know much about this particular subculture can understand what it is. I’m just super proud that a movie like this exists, and people want to watch it.
“Pillion” comes to select theaters February 13th, and expands February 20th, courtesy of A24.
