There’s a lot to be said about Ray, the biker played by Alexander Skarsgård in Pillion: He’s tall, he’s blond, he’s intimidating, he’s buff, he’s handsome. The list goes on. There’s one physical trait, however, that rises above the rest, and those are Ray’s little glasses. He wears them when he’s reading. He wears them around the house. They are singular and adorable. They’re the best accessory in the whole film.
Part of why Ray’s little glasses are so thoroughly delightful in a movie like Pillion is because they allow us as viewers to get to know him the way Colin (Harry Melling) does. The two strike up a somewhat unconventional romance after meeting on Christmas in Colin’s local pub wherein their first date involves a back-alley blowjob and little conversation. That’s not necessarily a turnoff for Colin — too romantically and sexually experienced to know (or want) better for himself — who submits, again and again, to Ray’s literal demands. Part of why Colin continues to devote himself to Ray is an attempt at knowability: He hopes that if he relinquishes control just one more time, he’ll be let into Ray’s world.
It’s almost a surprise when we learn, partway into the film, that Ray is a reader. Most of what we’ve seen him do is relatively butch: Have a big dog, ride a motorcycle, and wrestle. When we see him reading a Knausgård novel while wearing his reading glasses, the image feels like a punch line to a joke the movie has been setting up the whole time. In Ray’s bare-bones house, spotless and white and lacking any of the familiar comforts that make Colin’s life with his parents so cozy, there is a guy who reads contemporary auto-fiction who needs little reading glasses to do so. They are Ray’s only feature that feels like an anomaly and thus even more hot.
We never get the lowdown on Ray, much to Colin and the viewers’ disappointment. This narrative edging is by design; part of what Colin has to learn through this relationship is that he isn’t satisfied as much as he feels he should be. The glasses suggest a vulnerability that is otherwise withheld from Colin. Try as we — and Colin’s family — might to understand Ray’s whole deal, that information is given to us only visually. Characters frequently make note of Ray’s handsomeness, how absurd he is to look at. The slutty little glasses are grounding and contradictory: Is Ray secretly a nerd? Is he nearsighted? How old was he when he started wearing them? The mystery lingers long after the lights come up, but at least we have the little specs — a keepsake, a token of a hot guy come and gone.