Strange Way of Life

Strange Way of Life is a short Western drama about two men whose shared past resurfaces after a long separation. Silva, a rancher, crosses the desert on horseback to find his old friend Jake, who has since become a small-town sheriff. The two worked together as hired guns twenty-five years earlier, and their reunion is warm enough that they spend the night together. The next morning, however, Jake tells Silva that the reason for the visit is not simply to revisit their former friendship, and the true purpose behind Silva's journey comes to the surface.

Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed the film, his twentieth feature in chronological order, following Parallel Mothers and preceding The Room Next Door. It is a 31-minute work in Spanish and English, produced by El Deseo and Saint Laurent, with Agustín Almodóvar as producer. Ethan Hawke plays Jake and Pedro Pascal plays Silva, while Jason Fernández and José Condessa appear as the younger versions of the two men.

The film received a critics' rating of 7 out of 10 from 99 reviews, a more favourable assessment than its audience scores, 6.2 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 14,000 votes and 6.3 out of 10 on TMDB from several hundred votes. Its worldwide box office was about 1 million dollars.