I CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT is a film with two problems. First, its production values and performances are amateur. Second, despite its earnest intentions to examine lesbian relationships in the contemporary South Asian and Middle East diaspora, it is actually incredibly simplistic and naive. In one particularly excruciating scene, the protagonist's sister realises she is gay when she spots books by Sarah Waters and k d lang CDs in her bedroom. This naivety carries through into a ludicrously fairy-tale ending. Overall, this is just another example of film-makers shoe-horning more transgressive material into the easy-to-swallow formula of mainstream romannces, viz. IMAGINE ME AND YOU
I CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT played Toronto 2008. It was released in India and the US last year and is currently on release in the UK. It opens in Germany on April 16th.
