While the annual debate rages over whether Die Hard qualifies as a Christmas movie, a new contender has quietly pedalled into view, offering a radically different festive vision. Forget tinsel-laden sentimentality; the breakout film Pillion is being hailed by critics as this year's most compelling and unconventional Christmas film.
The Never-Ending Die Hard Debate
The British public remains divided on the status of the 1988 Bruce Willis action classic. A recent official poll by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) found 44% of respondents believe Die Hard should not be designated a Christmas movie, versus 38% who think it should. For many, the film's gunfights and hostage crisis feel distinctly un-festive, despite its Christmas Eve setting.
This argument often centres on the idea that in Die Hard, Christmas is merely a backdrop, not a vehicle for themes of togetherness or hope. This contrasts with postwar classics like It's a Wonderful Life (1946) or Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which explicitly weave those messages into their narratives.
Enter Pillion: A Subversive Festive Offering
Released last week, director Harry Lighton's Pillion provides a fresh, intellectual take on the festive film. Based on Adam Mars-Jones's novel Box Hill, it stars Alexander Skarsgård as Ray, a leather-clad biker, and Harry Melling as Colin, a shy young man from suburban Bromley.
The film's first act is set during the Christmas period, opening with a date request for 5pm on Christmas Day, behind a Primark. The film brilliantly juxtaposes the fuzzy, sometimes suffocating warmth of Colin's family home—with its novelty jumpers and Christmas crackers—against the stark, unsentimental world of the BDSM relationship that develops with Ray.
Christmas as Queer Terrain
Lighton has stated his intention to explore how queer relationships often exist outside the heteronormative ideal of domesticity, which Christmas powerfully symbolises. Pillion uses the festive season not to promote nostalgic normalcy but as a contrasting landscape against which a non-conforming love story unfolds. Like The Holiday (2006), it's decidedly not family viewing, but for entirely different reasons.
This approach places Pillion in a lineage of films that conjure Christmas without sentimentality. The article cites Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), where lavish Christmas decorations parody 1990s consumerism and create an alienating backdrop for themes of marital discord.
The Perfect Festive Balance
The article suggests the best Christmas films strike a balance between cynicism and nostalgia. It highlights Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) as a masterclass, featuring a poignant sequence where fugitive Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) watches his estranged family celebrate without him through a window—a perfect encapsulation of festive loneliness.
While Die Hard continues to dominate December debates, Pillion demonstrates that the Christmas film genre has ample room for innovation, complexity, and stories that reflect the diverse realities of the season, proving that the best festive films are often those that challenge the template altogether.
