Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke bring back memories of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain in the Strange Way of Life trailer, dropped on April 26, as they play two queer gunslingers in love.
Helmed by Pedro Almodóvar, who gave up the offer of directing Brokeback Mountain on creative grounds, the new western will see Pedro as a rugged cowboy, while Ethan plays a tough sheriff.
The one-minute-six-second trailer shows Pedro’s character riding across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek to reunite with the Sheriff. The reunion would lead to a showdown between the two who have more than a platonic friendship to explore.
“This is a queer western in the sense that there are two men, and they love each other, and they behave in that situation in an opposite way,” Almodóvar revealed on an episode of the podcast Dua Lipa: At Your Service.
Strange Way of Life is a twist on classic Hollywood westerns full of blood, gunfights and the usual action infused with a dramatic storyline between the two leads. The film marks Almodóvar’s second English-language project following his 2020 Tilda Swinton-starrer short film The Human Voice. The film also sees Pedro and Ethan’s first onscreen collaboration.
Strange Way of Life will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May ahead of its theatrical release in the UK.