Back in 2022, Pedro Almodóvar revealed that he was working on his “answer to Brokeback Mountain”. Then, earlier this month, it was announced that the film – titled Strange Way of Life – would premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Now, we finally have a first look, with the release of an official trailer.
Starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, the trailer doesn’t give too much away, barring the presence of plenty of gun totin’, horse ridin’, and homoeroticism. In an accompanying synopsis, however, we learn that the story revolves around a rancher named Silva (Pascal), who rides a horse across the desert to Bitter Creek, to visit another man named Sheriff Jake (Hawke).
“25 years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva [...] worked together as hired gunmen,” the synopsis explains. “Silva visits [Jake] 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.”
Despite leaving the rest of the plot to our imagination, the filmmaker has previously revealed that the title alludes to a “very sad” fado song 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”.
Coming in at 30 minutes long, Strange Way of Life will be Almodóvar’s second English-language film, following the Tilda Swinton-starring 2020 short that adapted Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice. Watch the new trailer above.