The great idea that blossomed into Pedro Almodóvar's mind isn't completely new when dealing with the nature of men and their complexities on love and emotions. But he's such a skillfull and artistic director/writer that one can easily admire what's he doing and for a brief moment think they're seeing something very original. But since it's the western genre one doesn't go much further with the genre because practically everything that needed to be said or shown in it was already done...yet Mr. Almodóvar has some tricks to show, injecting new life in the genre with barely explored themes in it. I didn't want to make the comparison but I have to because it gets near in certain aspects or at least the way audiences and critics perceived a certain movie some years ago and that is "Brokeback Mountain". For some odd reason everybody was saying that it was a gay western when in fact just the main characters fit the notion of the genre (cowboys) but there was no western in it, it was mostly a love story between two cowboys. "Strange Way of Life" takes the step further and gives us the Old West with conflicts, bandits versus the law but also gives us a romance from the past between two buddies back when they were outlaws. One of them is still an outlaw of sorts, which is Silva (Pedro Pascal) and his return to the smalltown after more than 20 years to meet again the love of his life, Jake (Ethan Hawke), now a sheriff, comes with some second intentions rather than just rekindle a special time they had many years ago. And that's where the conflict begins. Like Ennis and Jack in Ang Lee's movie, Silva and Jake are a complicated duo where one sees a future where they can grow together and share some love and affection (Silva) while the other is so hardened with his caged reality, not knowing how to show his feelings that he refuses any possibility of break out of such world (Jake). The twist here isn't about wives but it's related with the families of both and a tragedy that connects them on opposite sides. And on an environment violence is the rule, how could anyone find time to experience something different than that and feel good about it? Intriguing. It's a very nuanced work, sober and slightly uncharacterestic from what Almodóvar usually does yet it has some of his usual elements, though presented in a very different (and also obvious) way. Gladly his first choices for the roles accepted their parts and they both were outstanding, most notably Pedro Pascal. It was a little sad that their moments together mostly relates with the impasse scenario rather than most loving and tender one - which is presented through a flashback when they were younger (played by José Condessa and Jason Fernández). I really loved this one, it was worth waiting for it even though it wasn't necessarily a spectacular work from the master - still better than many features out there. And on a side note, I'm really glad that he managed to drive people to theaters to see a short film. I had never seen anything like that happening before with a short. Almodóvar was asked time and again about a sequel to it, to which he replied that though he had the ideas and explained how it would work out he also said he won't make it (but why not make of this one as a feature? But he had his reasons). Even though he told about the ending of such sequel, I'd still love to see it done. There are so much more about Jake and Silva that needs to be addressed. 9/10.

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