★★★1/2

A man contemplates his life and relationships through a fairly regular stream of transactional hook-ups and one-night stands as he works as a New York City art intern in Drunken Noodles, a vulnerable, interesting, if not wholly satisfying final product. 

Adnan (Laith Khalifeh) arrives at his uncle’s home to cat-sit and work in a local art gallery. Over the course of his time in the city, we see, in reverse order, three consequential relationships he experiences with a food delivery driver, the artist who created provocative, embroidered erotic-themed art pieces on display in the gallery, and a look at life with a former partner during a quick vacation.

Writer/director Lucio Castro crafts a frank, unflinching look at impulse, lust, and desire, but Khalifeh’s performance offers a grounded realness to a wayward soul. While Adnan seems comfortable with casual sexual encounters and trysts, there are hints that he is looking for something more meaningful. 

Castro layers in subtle observations throughout his screenplay. Adnan never quite connects with his Doordash delivery man, Yariel (Joél Isaac), and though they discuss a lot in a short period of time, Adnan’s conversation with Sal (Ezriel Kornel) is compressed into a finite period of time - the kind of all-encompassing conversation designed to fit only within a fleeting moment of connection.

There’s a pervasive loneliness that gives way to surreal imagery and one encounter Sal and Adnan share in the woods that is as much fantasy as it is experimental eroticism. Still, when the film focuses on its main character, Drunken Noodles finds a queer man trying to find his place in the world and within a community. Does he accept the life he has or does he do the more difficult thing and open himself up to the possibility of something more?

Drunken Noodles was screened as part of the 52nd Seattle International Film Festival.