After the lukewarm opening film -- Maiwenn's Jeanne Du Barry, a fluffy costume drama starring Johnny Depp as King Louis XV -- the 76th Cannes Film Festival had its hottest ticket in a short film. Not just any short though: it's Pedro Almodovar's queer cowboy movie Strange Way Of Life, which saw patient festival-goers queuing up in the Rivera drizzle for nearly an hour to fill up even the worst seat of Salle Debussy on Wednesday.
Was it worth it? With a little stretch, yes. Probably because after the insipid opening film, people were just ready to grasp at anything to build the momentum of the festival, and Almodovar's stylish, fashionably grizzled 30-minute film and a belated (very much so) answer to Brokeback Mountain fit the bill just fine.
