USA, P-13, 115 m, 2002
Directed by Michael Apted. Stars Jennifer Lopez, Billy Campbell, Juliette Lewis, et al.

Studio moguls have never been champions of high art. If a proposed undertaking doesn’t assure a lofty return on their investment, these avaricious cigar-chompers will point even the most celebrated of filmmakers to the door. It’s easy enough to spot what the makers and shakers at Columbia saw as the commercial value in Enough, but what in the name of all that is holy can explain so many talented folk wanting to be a part of it? Though it was one of the most feeble-witted yarns in recent memory to be shopped around Tinsel Town, Nicholas Kazan’s screenplay for Enough inexplicably captured the attention of director Michael Apted. It’s impossible to discern what attracted Apted (best known for earnest dramas on the order of Coal Miner’s Daughter) to this ludicrous feminist-revenge fantasy, but he somehow cajoled a roster of A-list talent to participate in bringing it to the screen. I’m not sure which audience Enough is intended for. It’s an ill-considered amalgamation of a Lifetime movie of the week and an overcooked piece of kung-pow. 

Jennifer Lopez stars as Slim, which is a pretty asinine moniker to stick on your leading lady, but I guess that advice should fall on deaf ears if you’re a writer tacky enough to entitle a picture something like Enough in the first place. While working as a waitress in a greasy spoon, Slim meets her darkly handsome (and moneyed) husband-to-be, Mitch (Billy Campbell). After Mitch reprimands a chauvinistic patron for dishonoring her, Slim is convinced that she has finally found the knight-errant she’s been yearning for. So, in the next five or so minutes of screen time, we watch our two lovebirds get hitched, buy a house and give birth to a baby girl. (The daughter, Gracie, is about four or five years old when the story finally settles down in the present day.) Of course, the leading years of these characters’ lives together have been compressed into this hurried montage (punctuated by foolish title cards denoting this or that step in their relationship) so we can get to the “good stuff.” 

Seems ol’ Mitch is having an affair, and when Slim confronts him about it, he immediately turns evil and whacks her on the noggin. Mitch’s violent tendencies seem to come out of nowhere; he goes from easy-going to psychotic only because the plot requires him to do so. We gather that Mitch was a principled hubby up until this point, but who can say for sure since any necessary exposition was thoughtlessly slighted. Still, Mitch’s abusive outburst might have given us a jolt if the script had taken the time to flesh out (and dare I say humanize) his character. The scene leaves us cold because we aren’t afforded an opportunity to meet Mitch’s conversely tender side. (He’s such a tireless go-getter that he takes a work-related phone call in the hospital delivery room only seconds after his daughter is born.) What we need to see is if there were any early warning signs of Mitch’s violent streak that Slim might have chose to overlook during those first few years of marriage. If so, her denial of the problem could have been the mark of sinking amour-propre, or maybe she feigned ignorance in order to conserve a highfalutin lifestyle, yet none of this is even touched upon. At the very least, a peek into Mitch’s shadowy career as a “contractor” might’ve shown us that while he’s adept at applying browbeating tactics to strike whatever deal he wants, perchance the kick he gets from it has now oozed into his home life. But Mitch isn’t afforded any real motivation for the unseemly treatment of his wife. He’s just a two-dimensional, B-grade slimeball. 

The misogynistic Mitch doesn’t regret smacking Slim around. He carries on about how he affords Slim a good life, so she should just accept his adulterous ways and take his angry uppercuts with smiling aplomb. Slim, though, won’t play that game. She makes various attempts to skip out with Gracie (very well played by Tessa Allen), but Mitch somehow manages to keep tracking them down. Slim soon finds refuge in San Francisco, however, where she hooks up with her long-lost papa, Jupiter (!), played by Fred Ward. After a visit to a lawyer proves fruitless, Jupiter refers Slim to a martial arts instructor. (Why doesn’t anybody in these stupid thrillers ever think to phone the law?) Leaving her daughter in the care of a former co-worker (Juliette Lewis), Slim embarks on a month-long, Rocky-style training period. Her brilliant plan boils down to confronting her husband and then kicking the shit out of him. (Alas, the movie’s pretense of being a salute to female empowerment is utter bull, though the feminazis in the audience will certainly enjoy seeing Mr. Man take one in the balls.) But does Slim really have to lower herself to the brainless brutality of her old man in order to recover her independence? I guess so seeing how the movie has been pointing to that sort of resolution all along. Naturally, any sensible legal alternative is brushed aside because the fatiguing plot hinges upon a chain of unsubstantial twists in order to reach the grand finale. 

Enough doesn’t even entertain the notion that Mitch may be redeemable. He pursues Slim to all corners of the Earth, even going so far as to enlist the services of a trio of knife-wielding goons to intimidate anybody that might be shielding her. But why? If he truly loves her, why isn’t he allowed a moment of lamentation after drubbing her? And what enamored Mitch to our Latino lady of the hash house in the first place? I could fathom his obsession with her if she was, say, a governor’s daughter or some other type of matron of privilege—it would be in step with how he believes he can get anything he wants—but Slim, though admittedly good-looking, is hardly the unattainable prize you’d expect a guy like Mitch to pursue with such unrelenting fervor.     

The concluding sequence involves an unconvincing melee between Slim and Mitch, which plays like some absurd backyard spin on Rocky’s big bout with Apollo Creed. Slim breaks into Mitch’s condo while he’s out, and dresses the stage to her advantage by planting incriminating evidence, hiding his revolvers and so forth. When Mitch finally does show up, we’re in for an endless display of Slim pounding on his baneful kisser. The fight is laughably over the top, but it might have had some camp appeal if it wasn’t so predictable. We’re even subjected to the obligatory moment when the villain that we’re certain is dead jumps back up for one last “boo.” If this jackass Mitch had played his cards right and not given in to Slim’s violent taunts, he could have had Slim arrested for breaking and entering, as well as criminal assault, and probably gained custody of their daughter. Then again, if Slim had… 

Ah, who cares? I’ve had enough of this!

October 8, 2002

© Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen.