I Can't Think Straight (2008)

A touching romance movie focusing on the couple, and the couple alone! If you're looking for a cute and well done movie about two people falling in love, then look no further.

⋆⋆⋆⋆ // 4 STARS

Director: Shamim Sarif (don't you just love female directors?)

Where to Watch: I watched this movie on the website myflixer

Google User Rating: 91% liked this movie!

"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." (Leyla)

This movie is actually based on a book of the same title! However my review is strictly on the movie.

Quick Synopsis

Leyla: Shy writer who's working for her father's insurance company, and hasn't told her conservative Indian family about her sexuality. Also dating Tala's bestfriend Ali. Tala: Headstrong woman visiting London, and engaged (for the 4th time) to Hani, also not out to

her conservative Jordanian family. Leyla meets Tala, and they start hanging out, their relationship starting to blossom. Friend relationship of course. Then these friends, go on a weekend away together in Oxford (and stay in a one bed hotel room)... as friends. But then, as Tala and Leyla realize they've never felt the this way before, they sleep together and confess their love. Am I 100% sure how much time has passed? No. But I thought it had only been a maybe a week or two, and now their in love. Interesting. Anyways, Tala decides to exit that situation because she can't come out to her family, and Leyla's obviously heartbroken, but despite the recent breakup, Leyla finally decides to take charge and come out to her parents. Tala eventually heard that she came out, will Tala use this as inspiration to come out to her own parents and get back together with Leyla? But what if Leyla moved on? And what about their two boyfriends who are just vibing at this point? Watch and find out!

Official Review

Ok, so this movie is pretty simple, it pretty much just follows the girl's relationship. They meet, they hang out a couple times, they decide to go to Oxford for a weekend trip after just meeting, they fuck, they break up, they do other stuff that I won't mention because that's

a spoiler. That's pretty much it. But it's still so good. Let's compare this to Saving Face, a movie I criticized heavily because practically nothing happened in the beginning/middle of the movie. Saving Face had bland characters who didn't say much and showed little to no personality/emotions (besides Vivian's facial expressions). I Can't Think Straight, although going way to fast for me (the movie's only 1 hr and 10 min long not including credits), definitely should have added more relationship development scenes, but at least it had content. Very compacted content, but content none the less. There was development in their relationship, and they were clearly in love. That's why this is a 4 and Saving Face is a 3 (read my Saving Face review, I go a bit more into depth as to why it failed). I did think the sex scene was pretty well done, definitely more sensual and dramatic rather than just raw footage of them going at it nude (the former my preference in movies for sure). The two leading actresses, although in their classic 2000s attire, are extremely attractive, so that's always nice. Side characters aren't focused on too much, but I like them enough. Nothing crazy, but I did love Leyla's father, who despite his wife's views, accepted his daughter. If I'm being honest, I'm kind of sick of every single LGBT movie I watch include scenes where the daughter comes out to her

parents and her parents deny it/become enraged (obviously besides Leyla's dad). I'm over it. Got it. Homophobia. I know I watch pretty much only historical pieces, or movies from places where homophobia is more prevalent, so is it my fault? Probably, but still I cannot be the only one who doesn't want to see a daughter get disowned temporarily from her family for the 100th time. It's just depressing. But yes, I still recommend this movie despite its compacted and fast pace, as it's incredibly entertaining, the relationship is more complex than I usually see, and it goes through obstacles, additionally the characters have their own scenes just to develop them as characters. It's a good movie, and you should definitely watch it.

Cast/Heartthrobs

The cast is 95% of the time great. The acting really isn't something incredibly, however it's more than adequate. Except for 5% of the scenes where there are some discrepancies. It was so strange, there were just some scenes that I kind of cringed at? But other than that, pretty damn great. Leyla, aka Sheetal Sheth, has the biggest, most beautiful eyes, bigger than

Emma Stone's eyes, very pretty. Tala (Lisa Ray) was kind of strange for me, some scenes she looked so different, it would take me a hot second to figure out who she was. But then other scenes I was like "hot damn she's a bad bitch!" So strange, but her character was that typical confident and bad ass woman, which is amazing and made me love her character, however when she broke it off with Leyla in fear of her family's judgement, I felt like it kind of backtracked on this character's development. Don't get me wrong, I think it was right for the movie, but she pretty much just kind of... left. I guess I would've liked more uumpf. That's definitely why this movie isn't a 5... no uumpf. But still highly entertaining, and well done, especially the queer relationship.