With all of our favorite TV shows ending, what are we going to watch? Let me introduce you, dear reader, to the world of short films. And what a perfect time to make this introduction today, because we have a real star-studded hitter on our hands. Coming in at just 30 minutes, Strange Way of Life—directed by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar—will star Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as gay cowboys who reunite after 25 years to solve a murder.
“It could be like my answer to Brokeback Mountain,” Almodóvar told IndieWire, as he gears up to premiere his short film at Cannes Film Festival this summer. The director famously contemplated and turned down Brokeback before it went to Ang Lee. Now, he feels like he has the freedom to make the gay western he once envisioned before. “I think Ang Lee made a wonderful movie, but I never believed that they would give me complete freedom and independence to make what I wanted,” Almodóvar said. “Nobody told me that — they said, You can do whatever you want, but I knew that there was a limitation.”
Recently, Pascal starred in HBO’s The Last of Us, which featured a tender and much-celebrated apocalyptic romance between two male characters played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. Now, Pascal will get his chance. “Years ago you asked me what two men could do living together on a ranch,” he tells Hawke’s character. “I’ll answer you now.” Strange Way of Life was also filmed in the same location as the classic Italian spaghetti western The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. From the trailer, it seems as if the short film is making a conscious homage to famous westerns of the past. Though no release date has been set outside of Strange Way of Life‘s premiere at Cannes, you can check out its trailer below.
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Assistant Editor
Josh Rosenberg is an Assistant Editor at Esquire, keeping a steady diet of one movie a day. His past work can be found at Spin, CBR, and on his personal blog at Roseandblog.com.
