Strange Way of Life – Review

35 Minutes, Rated R

Written and Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Synopsis:

After twenty-five years Silva rides a horse across the desert to visit his friend Sheriff Jake. They celebrate the meeting, but the next morning Jake tells him that reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their friendship.

A man rides into a dusty western town across the desert and enters the Sheriff’s office. Greeting a clearly surprised Sheriff as an old friend, we are treated to a reunion of two old gunslingers with a somewhat checkered past, both personally and professionally.

So begins Strange Way of Life, a 35-minute short film from Spanish director Pedro Almodovar which stars Pedro pascal as Silva, the stranger, and Ethan Hawke as Jake, the Sheriff.

This is a reunion destined for ruin in more ways than one, though, as Jake is set to arrest Silva’s son, Joe, for the beating of a woman, and Silva is trying desperately to leverage their relationship to allow Joe to escape.

One part stripped-down Western, one part ill-fated love story, Strange Way of Life is an interesting look at the genre, with all the classic hallmarks present, even a lot of the camera-work is familiar.

Hawke and Pascal give solid performances as two men tortured by their pasts and possible futures, even if the dialogue sometime feels clunky, as if it was written in Almodovar’s native Spanish, then translated literally into English, resulting in a sometimes stilted or robotic arrangement which detracts a bit from the performances.

Overall, Strange Way of Life is an interesting, if brief, detour of a film, it’s most interesting aspect being the tortured nature of two men, one tortured by what he knows he wants, with the other tortured by what he knows cannot be.

Strange Way of Life will be in select theaters today, paired with Almodovar’s 2020’s short The Human Voice, starring the incredible Tilda Swinton.

Check them both out.

Tags: movie, movie review, strange way of life, pedro almodovar, ethan hawke, pedro pascal, western, love story, cowboy

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