Strange Way of Life review – Almodóvar’s stylish but slight cowboy love story

Sep 24 2023 - 1 min read

Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke do their best with meagre material in this underpowered short from the Spanish director

'Pedro Pascal standing behind Ethan Hawke with his arms around him'
'Pedro Pascal standing behind Ethan Hawke with his arms around him'Entertainment Pictures/Alamy


Well, it certainly looks lovely, as you would expect from the first offering from Saint Laurent Productions, a subsidiary of the luxury fashion goods label Yves Saint Laurent. And the orchestral score, by Alberto Iglesias, is glorious – lavish, full-blooded and swooping. But otherwise, this wispy snippet of gay cowboy drama from Pedro Almodóvar, which stars Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as reunited former lovers, is sadly synthetic and underpowered. Both Pascal and Hawke do their best, but with writing as inauthentic and cursory as this, there’s little they can do to elevate the material.

  • In cinemas for one day only, on 25 September

Watch a trailer for Strange Way of Life.

Original: The Observer

Author: Wendy Ide

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