With artistic and poetic inspirations, Lucio Castro’s Drunken Noodles unfolds across four chapters following Adnam, and the people he encounters, across two summers in and around New York.
I want your skull by CHRIS DREW
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
Adnam (Laith Khalifeh, By the Grace of….) arrives in New York to stay in his uncle’s apartment – with cat Susan – while undertaking a summer internship at a gallery.
Regularly cruising in the park, one evening he tries to catch the eye of a delivery driver Yariel (Joel Isaac, Marty Supreme) but is blanked.
One night soon after, Adnam is sitting in a playground, and the delivery driver spots him and cycles over. After a sexual encounter, they get to know each other. Adnam tries Yariel’s bike with the bright neon lights blazing circles around the playground.
During a visit to the gallery Adnam introduces Yariel to the art – fascinating sexually explicit sewed images of groups of men and some Disney characters in less family-friendly scenarios.
In an unexpected change of perspective, Yariel excitedly tells his friends about the art. They all then arrive at Adnam’s apartment, wordlessly stripping to their underwear. The ensuing orgy is seen in staged stills – seeing the men breathing – echoing the art in the gallery.
The second chapter opens with Adnam getting a flat tyre cycling in the country. He is helped by an older man (Ezreil Kornel, Skye Hoshi: Anime Girl), noticing his jockstrap protruding from under his shorts and dildos through his window.
It soon becomes clear that the older man is the artist who had set Adnam up with the internship as he learns about his artistic style and fetish. The two hook up before learning about each other over dinner.
They sit in the woods at night and Adnam is told to wait and listen. In a blue light a woodland fawn appears and pleasures himself with a flute. Adnam is told he can go up to him but not touch and then appears giddy from the experience.
Seemingly some time into the future, the third chapter sees Adnam taking a trip out of the city with writer boyfriend Iggy (Matthew Risch, Sex and The City 2).
Affection and tension appear equally balanced: the pair have not had sex for a long time. Over a fire, Adnam shares a childhood story of kissing his grandfather on the mouth when he fell asleep listening to the radio.
Adnam wakes to find Iggy sitting lifeless in a storage room while is also asleep in their bed. Iggy is feigning sleep – with the quiet sounds of a radio – and initiates sex before Adnam finds him again in their bed.
The shorter, almost dialogue free, final chapter takes place some time after the third. Outside a party at the gallery we see – from across the road – Adnam speak to Iggy outside the gallery. From their body language it appears that they are no longer together but on good terms.
Adnam goes cruising but abruptly it is daytime and on his own. The final sequence sees him dreamily wandering around the empty park, lying alone in the grass as the words of a Li Bai poem appear on the screen.
Throughout the film, moments of seemingly regular life are frequently interspersed by moments of magical realism which could be from a dream or drug-fuelled fantasy.
Castro, who also edited and produced the film, took inspiration from the art of Sal Salandra and each new chapter opens with a beautiful image of the chapter title being embroidered.
As with Castro’s earlier film End of the Century, it’s never made explicitly clear when the chapters take place in relation to each other. Khalifeh makes for a charismatic lead with each chapter being equal parts engaging and intriguing in a title which should please fans of indie gay cinema.
Drunken Noodles premiered at ACID Cannes and screened at the 2026 BFI Flare Festival.
