Alone and happily adrift for the summer in Brooklyn, a young gay grad student hits the apps for an evening hookup, and within minutes, is met in a neighborhood park by a studly food-delivery cyclist at the end of his shift. Finding an unlit corner, they quickly get each other off, then more idly share a leftover order of slurpy post-coital pad kee mao on a nearby bench, all before they so much as exchange names. For those who view swiping for sex as a violation of the correct social order, this languid, humid, perfectly played scene in Lucio Castro‘s “Drunken Noodles” will confirm all their biases. But there’s also a gentle, easy intimacy to it, an understanding of the charged connection forged by even a fleeting erotic encounter, and that unforced energy permeates this balmy, breeze-blown character study.
Following the ambitious genre experiment of “After This Death” — premiered only months ago at the Berlinale — Castro’s third feature returns him to the woozy, sensuous territory of his 2019 debut “End of the Century.” This is a slighter, more mischievous work, however, as befits a story less concerned with long-term existential inquiries than with brief carnal encounters: The Argentine director’s warm, nonjudgmental gaze on youthful, libidinous play is a bracing asset in what continues to be a markedly sexless era even for arthouse and LGBT cinema. Strand Releasing has already secured North American rights to what could well become a queer cult item.
The unfussed, soft-spoken air of lead actor Laith Khalifeh very much sets the tempo for “Drunken Noodles,” much of which unfolds in his company alone. As Adnan, an art student spending the summer cat-sitting for a wealthy uncle in New York City, he’s impassive and inquisitive in equal measure. With his on-trend mustache and just-oversized-enough wardrobe, he looks the part of a practised urban hipster, perfectly accessorized with a job as an intern at a hole-in-the-wall Williamsburg gallery — but there’s a faintly anxious naiveté to him that draws in other men, of various ages and types, over the course of three chapters sequenced in reverse chronological order.
In the first, Adnan’s initial tryst with the aforementioned DoorDash-er, Yariel (Joel Isaac), cues a tentative relationship between them that stays of a primarily physical nature. A halting, awkward attempt at a date unfolds at the gallery Adnan is minding, where an exhibition of deliciously filthy folk art is on display: colorful and intricately embroidered tapestries depicting men in various, vigorous scenes of orgiastic activity and BDSM roleplay. (Call it hard-cottagecore, if you will.) Intentionally or otherwise, the pieces provide a template for a later group get-together between Adnan, Yariel and a gaggle of fellow delivery riders. It’s a rude tangle of jockstraps, helmets and bare flesh that Castro presents as a teasing still-photography montage, as if on another gallery wall somewhere.
We flash back to the summer the year before, where Adnan meets Sal (neurosurgeon and sometime thesp Ezriel Kornel), the bearish sixtysomething artist behind the tapestries, while cycling through the woods upstate. Instant, unspoken chemistry between them leads into nonchalant sex, before a more unusual night’s cruising that steers the film, with wilfully loopy abandon, into outright magical realism — and not for the last time. The next chapter rewinds the timeline only a day or so, revealing poignant context for Adnan’s exploratory spirit in the previous two.
“Drunken Noodles” may predominantly focus on the liberties and sporadic lonesome spells of single living, but it’s also quietly sharp on the bittersweet rewards and restrictions of gay coupledom. One slyly witty scene sees Adnan sharing with his amused partner a perverse memory of inchoate childhood sexuality: the first secret of many in a sex life storied with passing, private encounters, collected and cultivated by our hero even as he pursues an open, loving relationship. A dreamily whimsical epilogue, meanwhile, makes the case for complete solitude.
Everything feels aptly and pleasingly on the fly in this portrait of will-o’-the-wisp living: The filmmaking is never strenuous or overworked, from the casual, economical slices of Castro’s editing to DP Barton Cortright’s use of airy natural light and deep, sweat-dampened color. Other crew members do double or triple duty, with Yegang Yoo deserving of credit both for the film’s sparse, irregular score and subtly character-attuned costumes. This scale and spontaneous style of production suits Castro’s drifting, ruminative interests as an artist — here centered on everyday ecstasies and fantasies, of the flesh and of the mind, as found in a woodland walk, a perfectly presented derrière, or a greasy takeout carton.
