This year has already been a bounteous one for Pedro Pascal fans (or, everyone on the internet). It got off to a stellar start with The Last Of Us, before Din Djarin returned in The Mandalorian – and while both of those shows have wrapped up their latest seasons, there’s more Pascallian pleasures on the way. In fact, his next project teams him up with a fellow favourite Pedro – director Pedro Almodóvar, who teams Pascal up with Ethan Hawke in a Western short film titled Strange Way Of Life. The film – Almodóvar’s second short after the Tilda Swinton-starring The Human Voice – has released its first trailer, showing off a heightened melodramatic tone, some beautiful cinematography, and much romantic tension between Pascal and Hawke. Watch it here:
Sizzling drama, latent longing, colourful tailoring… this is an Almodóvar joint, alright. And it looks typically beautifully-constructed from the filmmaker, who’ll be debuting this one shortly at the Cannes film festival. Beyond that, Strange Way Of Life will receive a cinematic release in the UK, for you to take in those gorgeous visuals and scintillating performances on the big screen. Here’s the official synopsis: “A man rides a horse across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek. He comes to visit Sheriff Jake. Twenty-five years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva, the rancher who rides out to meet him, worked together as hired gunmen. Silva visits him with the excuse of reuniting with his friend from his youth, and they do indeed celebrate their meeting, but the next morning Sheriff Jake tells him that the reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their old friendship…”
Beyond that description, Almodóvar is keeping the twists and turns of the plot under wraps. “I must say no more so as not to give away all the surprises of the script,” he says. But he does open up a little on that title. “The strange way of life referred in the title alludes to the famous fado by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires.” If your desires include seeing Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke in an Almodóvarian Western romance-drama, you won’t have to turn your back on them for too much longer.