For decades that stretch back as far as cinema goes, the Western genre has been perceived and created in a hyper-masculinized manner, with stars like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood taking on the roles of familiar heroes dressed in top hats. However, recent films like Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (2022) and now Pedro Almodóvar’s second English-language short film have paved the way for queer stories within the genre.

Strange Way of Life, which premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, follows a reconciliation between Silva (Pedro Pascal) and Jake (Ethan Hawke) after Silva decides to visit. It’s 25 years since they last saw each other, to be exact. Sooner rather than later, though, Silva unveils the true reason that he has returned, forcing both Jake and Silva to explore their deeply repressed feelings of love.

Everything from the traditional costume design to an isolated town feels like what we’d see in any Western — the perfect backdrop to then subvert expectations. While some 21st-century directors defy the established rules of the genre when bringing their own modern approach to the table, Almodóvar instead plays to the audience’s familiarity with them, revealing something deeper and more profound about the characters underneath them.

This is especially true with Hawke’s character, who is even less vulnerable and emotionally honest than Silva. Jake claims he’s never missed a shot in his life — and seems to conveniently forget the one time he did when Silva points it out. As a sheriff, he is expected to take no shit from anyone, but the fragile ego he presents slowly lets down when reuniting with Silva. This makes Silva such a fascinating foil to Jake, especially as both characters realize that decades apart can’t separate what they feel for each other deep down. Both Hawke and Pascal give heartbreaking performances, the tenderness and intimacy they once shared blooming in their eyes and every voice inflection.

With a brief 31-minute runtime, there’s so much history that you can feel just from watching them interact that gets unexplored or merely referenced. It’s like a previous chapter of a book getting ripped out with no explanation. That also seems to be kind of the point; their time together is fleeting, the chance encounter coming out of nowhere yet being inevitable all the same. It makes their time together special, but with chemistry, this instant between two actors at the top of their game, how come this couldn’t have been a feature-length film? If it had been, I think this would’ve been a career highlight in Almodóvar’s already acclaimed filmography.

Almodóvar, who is no stranger to leaning into theatrics and soap drama in films like Parallel Mothers (2021) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), does so here to great effect. With frequent collaborator Alberto Iglesias returning to compose a dramatic, orchestral score, Almodóvar leans into some of the playful, self-aware humor he’s known for.

This is especially prevalent in a flashback scene as a younger Jake and Silva (Jason Fernández and José Condessa) and a group of female friends stick their tongues out underneath leaking barrels of wine, the dark red staining everybody’s clothes and hair. This moment also leads to the film’s steamiest moment between Silva and Jake, in stark contrast to the lack of physical touch in the present day.

Another interesting aspect of Strange Way of Life is how it’s situated in the rest of  Almodóvar’s career. Many directors often get their start making short films before getting the name recognition and budget for features, so it’s interesting to watch Almodóvar make shorts at this stage in his career (like 2020’s The Human Voice) in between some of his longer features.

While Almodóvar tries to wrap up the entire narrative in one, brief final line, he hasn’t built up enough emotional context for us to fully buy into it. What the audience is left with, as much as they may get emotionally enamored, is a brief tease at a fully captivating story. The glimpse we do get here is filled with rich subtext worth watching and analyzing, but the missing hole of a complete narrative remains.

Review Courtesy of Matt Minton

Feature Image credit to El Deseo and Saint Laurent Pictures via MUBI