I Can't Think Straight (2008)

Lisa Ray: Tala

Photos 

Quotes 

• Tala : [writing a letter to Leyla]  Every night I empty my heart, but by morning it's full again. Slowly, droplets of you seep in through the night's soft caress. But don't I overflow with thoughts of us, an aching pressure that gives me no respite. Love cannot be contained; the neat packaging of desire splits asunder, spilling crimson through my days, long languishing days that are now bruised, tender with yearning, spent searching for a fingerprint, a scent, a breath you left behind.

• Leyla : Have you ever done this before?

  Tala : Slept with a woman while my fiancé makes wedding preparations? Nope, never done that before.

  Leyla : That's not what I meant.

• Tala : When I was 18, I fell madly in love with a girl my first year at college in New York. She was an American. We spent three wonderful months together. I never knew I could feel so... complete. So alive.

  Leyla : Til now, obviously.

  Tala : Til now.

  Leyla : So, what happened?

  Tala : I broke it off. I ended it.

  Leyla : Why?

  Tala : I was in pieces. I told myself that it was for the best. I was away from home, I was lonely, and...

  Leyla : And?

  Tala : This is not a way to live, Leyla. It's not easy. It's not acceptable.

  Leyla : We didn't break any rules last night, Tala.

  Tala : But we did where I come from. People in the Middle East do not live like this. At least not openly.

  Leyla : And now, you're in England. Now, you live in the west.

  Tala : But I don't think that in any society of cheating on one's fiancee with someone else is acceptable.

• [after Tala and Leyla had sex for the first time] 

  Tala : What are you thinking about?

  Leyla : Why I didn't meet you years ago.

  Tala : We would have been underage then.

• Tala : Come here. Dance with me.

  Leyla : I can't. I have absolutely no sense of rhythm.