I can’t recall how a friend first heard about the Canadian actress Lisa Ray now, but, following online lead after another, she discovered the 2008 movie I Can’t Think Straight. Then she urged me endlessly to watch it. I have to admit: What got me curious was the witty title. So watch it I did.
I Can’t Think Straight is the film adaptation of a romantic novel by writer and film director Shamim Sarif. I hadn’t heard of her or her work before, which is unfortunate because watching the film made me an instant fan. It also made me realize how much I’d been missing by not making the effort to watch films outside of the usual accessible Western fare.
I Can’t Think Straight tells the love story of two girls who find themselves falling in love with each other a little unexpectedly and, in doing so, having to face these feelings amidst societal acceptance and pressure from the family.
Tala is a London-based Palestinian who’s in the thick of wedding preparations in Jordan. She is a Christian, albeit a non-conformist one, and her family is well-ensconsed in Middle Eastern high society.
Leyla is a young British-Indian Muslim who is dating Tala’s best friend Ali. She is working in a passionless job for her father’s insurance agency because that is what her parents want, but what Leyla really wants is to be a writer.
The two girls meet in London. They play tennis. Tala plays polo, while Leyla watches. They visit Oxford. Soon, they fall in love.
While Tala starts off as the spirited one — before they meet, Leyla hears of how Tala left the family business to strike it out on her own — it soon becomes clear that Leyla is the stronger of the two when it comes to embracing her sexuality.
When Tala breaks off the relationship and returns to Jordan to attend her wedding, Leyla thanks her for the gift and clarity — what better way to get clear about what one wants than to fall in love and lose it? — and takes her broken heart and moves on.
Leyla stops doubting herself and starts breaking free from her parents’ expectations: she moves out, becomes a writer, finds a girlfriend, gets an authentic life. Meanwhile, Tala’s realization is slow in coming, but it does come, and sweetly.
The movie’s official tagline is: “You can only find true love when you’re true to yourself.”
I Can’t Think Straight is a romantic comedy, but I found parts of it quite touching, especially scenes that reflect the universal truth that people just want to be authentic and be accepted. While the film is at first glance a lesbian love story — made even more so because the two girls have to come out to conservative families in conservative societies — it is still more a love story than it is a lesbian one.
When Leyla realizes who she is and what she wants, she tells Tala, “I want to be with someone who, ten years from now, still makes my heart jump when I hear her key in the door. And that someone is you.”
Love is love, and the joy finally finding it brings you is one and the same: a joy that only your heart would know.
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