Drunken Noodles

Drunken Noodles, written and directed by Argentinian-born New York-based filmmaker Lucio Castro, follows Adnan (Laith Khalifeh), a young art student who arrives in Brooklyn for the summer to cat-sit in an apartment while interning at a local art gallery. The gallery exhibits the erotic needlepoint works of an older, unconventional artist named Sal Salandra, whose art draws Adnan into a world of sensory and intellectual fascination. The film is structured as a series of discrete chapters — introduced by embroidered title cards — that move fluidly between past and present, urban Brooklyn streets and dreamlike rural landscapes.

Soon after settling in, Adnan has a spontaneous intimate encounter with Yariel, a food delivery rider. In the aftermath, the two share a portion of the titular drunken noodles together on a park bench, and Yariel leaves Adnan a cryptic note reading: 'If an exchange occurs in the dark, it means it will last forever.' This charged meeting sets off a cascade of memory and reflection, pulling Adnan backward through time to revisit prior relationships and encounters. One such strand depicts his relationship with his soft-spoken boyfriend Iggie, a once-romantic connection that has grown sexless and distant — desire cooled by predictability. Adnan also comes into direct contact with Salandra himself, the older artist whose work he has been studying, deepening the film's interweaving of artistic and erotic experience.

The narrative is less concerned with depicting sexual acts themselves than with tracing the spark, build-up, and residue of desire — how each encounter leaves a lasting impression on Adnan's identity and inner life. The film shifts registers between realistic Brooklyn settings and surreal, fantastical imagery, including eerie nocturnal woodland scenes suggesting a mythic or spiritual dimension. Drawing on Tang Dynasty poetry as a thematic touchstone, Drunken Noodles culminates in a pastoral, near-mythic coda in which Adnan moves beyond the restless pursuit of desire toward a state of ease and spiritual contemplation — suggesting that each fleeting connection has contributed to a quiet sense of wholeness.

Sources: IMDb (plot summary page), Exclaim! (Inside Out 2026 review), The Reviews Hub (BFI Flare 2026 review), Web search aggregated results