Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Strange Way of Life’ on Netflix, a Pedro Almodovar Short Starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as Queer Cowboys

Strange Way of Life (now on Netflix) marks the collaboration of absolutely singular filmmaker Pedro Almodovar with actors Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal and you should be bellowing WHERE DO WE SIGN UP before I even finish this sentence. Notable: It’s a 31-minute short film, and Almodovar’s second English-language effort (the first being 2020 short The Human Voice, starring Tilda Swinton). It also features a “Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello” producer credit that gets near-equal billing with Almodovar, so now we know how this film got financed, and why Pascal and Hawke are so impeccably dressed. But anyone concerned that it’s just a commercial for clothing you can’t afford should hold those knee-jerk critical horses and remember that Almodovar has more style than any fashion designer could ever dream about having, so the push-pull between art and commerce here inevitably skews to the former.

STRANGE WAY OF LIFE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Jake (Hawke) is the sheriff around these parts. He wasn’t always so above-board – he used to be a real rootin-tootin gunslinger before he aged out and settled down to become a lawman. We’ll get to a bit more of that in a minute, because right now, he has a murder suspect to apprehend, a murder suspect who happened to have killed Jake’s brother’s widow. Just as Jake’s about to get to business, Silva (Pascal) moseys into town in a green jacket that everyone watching the movie now wants. They know each other, these two men. They greet each other affectionately, but not too affectionately. There are other people around, you know.

Later, though, it’s just the two of them, eating dinner at Jake’s house and reminiscing about things that happened 25 years ago, the last time they saw each other. They call it “that madness” and “those two months in Mexico.” There were avid amounts of drunkenness and gunfire, it seems. Anything else? Indeed: They Brokeback Mountain’d a bit before Jake pooh-poohed Silva’s idea that they settle down on a ranch together. And they still just don’t know how to quit each other. They fall into bed and the next morning Silva can’t find his drawers so Jake gives him a pair of his underwear right out of his drawer. We get a lingering shot of that underwear drawer – everything so neatly folded, and no gross stains or nothin’. And now it seems as if Silva is in town for a reason beyond a reunion of their hearts and loins: Silva’s son is the murder suspect. Hope they savored the moment before it was gone.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s novel and refreshing to see master directors get significant distribution for their short films, e.g., Wes Anderson’s recent efforts for Netflix, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Rat Catcher, Poison and The Swan. 

Performance Worth Watching: Although we’re now 10 years into the HAWKENAISSANCE (it began with Boyhood but really caught fire with First Reformed), and he’s excellent here, Pascal’s performance is ultimately more endearing, as he plays the queer cowboy with a more generous spirit compared to his counterpart’s bitter resistance. 

Memorable Dialogue: Jake points a gun at Silva, but Silva doesn’t seem too worried about getting shot: “How will you explain that? A dead man in your bed, still smelling of cum?”

Sex and Skin: Pascal’s bare bum; a flashback in which two young cowpokes stick their hands down each other’s pants.

Our Take: This story of unfinished business between aging gunslingers feels like unfinished business as a movie – just as Strange Way of Life starts to heat up, it ends, leaving us wanting more inspired exchanges between Pascal and Hawke’s aging, conflicted, conflicting men. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. I’m also not necessarily implying that the film is undercooked; it’s very typically Almodovar in the sense that’s it’s charged with sexual tension and imagery, vivaciously colorful in tone and imagery and roiling with winking subtext that toys with and subverts dusty Western cliches. And that unnamed cowboy singing soprano in Spanish on the stoop? His voice is so startlingly feminine, your jaw will drop. 

And so we get snatches of Almodovar’s trademark melodrama, coupled with gorgeous cinematography: the blazing heat of the sun in the expansive desert, pensive faces around crackling campfires. And all that warmth isn’t about men being manly men with their horses that go neigh and their guns that go bang-bang. No, the banging has little to do with firearms, and the men here are so impressively and amusingly fastidious about their underwear drawers. Strange Way of Life is a too-short but not dissatisfying snapshot of where love and the law meet and depart, and it’s thematically strong enough to make us forget that it kind of functions as a fashion show. John Wayne would’ve hated this movie, and that’s all the more reason for us to like it. 

Our Call: Even a trifle of an Almodovar effort is worth seeing – and Strange Way of Life is a cut or two above trifledom. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.