Strange Way of Life: A queer western where strangeness lies in brevity

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Pedro Almodóvar’s newest short film, Strange Way of Life, premiered in the early days of the Cannes Film Festival. The queer western, said to be Almodóvar’s answer to Brokeback Mountain, stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, who play cowboys Jake and Silva, respectively. The film follows Silva, who after twenty-five years, rides across the desert to reunite with his friend, sheriff Jake. The next morning, the motivation for Silva’s journey comes into question, and the pair’s celebration is marred by strife.

Strange Way of Life is chalk full of ingredients that make it instantly appealing. The film opens with a medium of Pedro Pascal, styled by Saint-Laurent in a vibrant green denim jacket, and the theater immediately rumbled with the nervous giggles of enamored Pascal fanatics. He soon reunites with Ethan Hawke, who is probably in contention for the best dressed sheriff in the American West. Saint-Laurent (yes, the designer fashion brand) is credited with producing and costuming this film, and their presence is certainly felt. Their touch mixes with Almodóvar’s to create a wonderfully contradictory desert that is full of color and style. Almodóvar allows Pascal and Hawke to spend the entirety of the film in very close proximity to each other, allowing audiences to bask in the interplay between Pascal’s charismatic passion and Hawke’s grizzled fortitude.

The strangeness of Strange Way of Life comes with its short, 31 minute runtime. This half hour is filled to the brim, and perhaps overflowing, with story. Hawke and Pascal spend an entire scene delivering vast amounts of exposition essential to contextualizing these characters and the history of their relationship. The scene is awkward, unnatural, and though it answers any questions the audience may have had about these character’s backstory, it poses another, more puzzling one:

Why is this not a feature film?

Placing any greediness and fanatic gluttony aside, Strange Way of Life is one of the rare films that actually suffers from a short runtime, in contrast with the usual over-indulgence of films. The film breaks up its pacing and sincerity with the aforementioned exposition dump, and even subsequently includes flashback detailing a passionate moment between the two cowboys in their previous life. The cowboy’s dramatic history together is talked about, but why couldn’t it be shown instead? Jake’s incredible skills as a gunman are lauded over, but never displayed to us. The film’s ending also feels premature, and though its ambiguity poses an interesting question about the fate of these characters, the abrupt cut to credits was somewhat jarring and poorly paced. If this film was allowed another half hour or more to breath and expound upon its narrative more patiently, the story could be far more poignant. Instead, I found myself distracted amidst what is an inherently compelling story with questions about the reason this film, unshackled in its other creative decisions, feels so constrictively bracketed in length.

In all likelihood, Strange Way of Life could’ve been a massively popular feature film. The film stars one of the biggest and most obsessed over stars in the world right now in Pedro Pascal, as well as the great Ethan Hawke. The film is colorful, stylized (by Saint Laurent!), and would surely draw interest as a prominent entry into the incredibly sparse and niche queer western subgenre. In addition, the film actually suffers because of the attempt to compact it into a short rather than a feature. Perhaps one day we well get an expansion of this story, but for now, Strange Way of Life is a fun, entertaining, and brisk 30 minutes that, if nothing else, will leave you craving more from Almodóvar’s colorful desert.

Written by Michael Saccone

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