Hunger drenches everything in Drunken Noodles, Lucio Castro’s curious, horny exploration of need. We have become spoiled to getting food with a few clicks on our phones, but the same can be said when it comes to gay and queer lust. The way we cruise, hunt, and expect to find sex has completely changed not dissimilarly from when we feel the tightening in our stomachs when we need something in our bellies. Are we constantly hoping to be satiated? Castro’s latest film gently bends time as we can all see how different appetites drive us, especially when we might not know what we want. Drunken Noodles is one of the sexiest films I’ve seen in a long time–I absolutely adore it.
Not long after Laith Khalifeh’s Adnan arrives in Brooklyn to look after his uncle’s cate does he begin a job working at a small art gallery. Castro captures that playground feeling of a huge city effortlessly as Adnan makes eyes at a bicycle food delivery guy, Joél Isaac’ Yariel and cruises for sex in the dark corners that New York has to offer. In the first public encounter that we witness, Adnan’s eyes nearly glisten with a mixture of anticipation and desire as the man standing over him buckles up, thanks him, and initiates their separation, we presume, as quickly as it began. That look of yearning flickers with urgency throughout Khalifeh’s performance almost as if Adnan is afraid to ask his hook ups whether they might want to go another round or if he will ever see them again–even though, it’s clear, that it’s a one-time thing.
Castro breaks his film into wafting chapters as Drunken Noodles drifts back to another summer where Adnan meets an artist, Sal Salandra, at his Long Island cabin after Adnan’s bike gets a flat tire. Sal’s work, embroidered adult gay scenes, is cheeky and sexy–the pink tongues of the men almost wagging at the audience–and the inclusion of him in the film came after Castro considered making a documentary about him a few years back. It happens to also be the work that is being shown at the gallery when we first meet Adnan. When we drift back to watch Adnan with a former flame, Matthew Risch’s Iggie, we see how he communicates with a partner and how he isn’t shy about expressing his sexuality or what he wants. That need in Khalifeh’s eyes remains. I hesitate to even say that Castro “divides” his film into different parts as they feel like they lay on top of each other or float into one another.
The cinematography, by Barton Cortright, captures the temperature of every moment. When Adnan grabs food at his apartment door, you feel like you can smell the wind of a late night which allows us to believe that anything can transpire as long as you make sure no one is looking. When Adnan cruises for sex in public, the air feels still but taut–it’s romantic, sexy, and unbelievably present. It’s one of the sexiest and most engaging films related to cruising that you will ever see. In a moment of magical realism, Adnan and Sal sit and watch a satyr in the woods as he is bathed in moonlight, and that intensity is matched by the natural beauty found in scenes that play out in the daytime. It’s almost as if to say that Castro wants us to recognize the beauty in the leaves in the trees, the touch of grass, and this place that we have been given. There is a shot of Adnan smoking outside the cabin as Izzie works on his laptop. He strolls back and forth the light rectangular window, and I wondered if Adnan just wanted his partner to acknowledge him.
How many people feel like Adnan as they meet their desires? A lot of us should answer our cravings as he does with the night descending onto his body and the crickets chirping in the late wee hours. There is something so strikingly beautiful about two men pressing their bodies together in order to get what they want as quickly as possible. Drunken Noodles hooks itself into you and looks directly into your eyes. It speaks to us like a lover’s touch on a calm, sweaty night.
Drunken Noodles is playing now in limited release.
