Enough,
directed by Michael Apted, presents a textbook example of
male chauvinism. Since there have been many such films before,
Enough hints at the unique element of the story
by casting Jennifer Lopez in the lead role. "Slim"
(played by Jennifer Lopez), a humble waitress in a Los Angeles
restaurant, is the prey for Mitch (played by Billy Campbell),
a successful building contractor who is shopping for a submissive
spouse. With the aid of an LAPD friend Robbie Hero (played
by Noah Wyle), he pulls a scam to make her acquaintance, and
they are married after a whirlwind romance. As he confides
later in the film, "I am a man who gets whatever he wants."
Indeed, he makes an offer for a mansion, fills the residence
with the latest decor, and soon he is a father. Their daughter
Gracie (played by Tessa Allen) is a sweet, innocent five-year-old,
however, when Mitch's beeper one day displays the number 33.
When Slim calls 33 on his cellphone, a woman by the name of
Darcell answers, and Mitch's infidelity is exposed. When Slim
confronts him with the betrayal, he tells her that he makes
the rules in the relationship because he is the breadwinner,
and he also asserts his authority with some physical violence.
Rather than reporting the domestic abuse to the police, she
consults her friends for sympathy and continues to live with
her husband and daughter until she can stand him no longer
and decides to flee one night. Mitch, however, cuts off her
financial resources and tracks her down in Los Angeles, so
she flies to Seattle to visit a former boyfriend, Joe (played
by Dan Futterman). One day a phony FBI trio shows up at his
apartment to search for the missing mother and daughter. Although
they fail to locate them in an obvious hiding place, the message
is obvious: Slim and Gracie will have to take flight again.
So they go to San Francisco to visit Slim's birthfather Jupiter
(played by Fred Ward), but he sends Slim away, claiming that
he has sired a lot of children and does not plan to help any.
Next, mother and daughter move to the Northern Peninsula of
Michigan, continuing the cinematographic scenery postcard,
but they maintain contact through payphones with Mitch in
the belief that such communication will result in a favorable
ruling at a forthcoming custody hearing. Mitch, however, now
relies on his corrupt LAPD friend to locate Slim and Gracie
in Michigan. After she escapes from the house that was her
hideout, she bursts into the office of Michigan attorney Jim
Toller (played by Bill Cobbs), who says that she now has no
legal recourse, since she failed to report incidents of domestic
violence to the police, and she will lose the custody hearing
unless she appears, though such an appearance will flush her
out of the closet for further surveillance and intimidation.
Accordingly, Slim and Gracie move again, this time to San
Francisco. Slim's father now comes to her assistance because
he has a score to settle with Mitch, whose three pseudo-FBI
goons recently annoyed him. A film starring Jennifer Lopez
without her displaying gymnastic proficiency would be very
odd, so in the next part of the film we see her learning various
fighting techniques. Her plan is to gain entry to Mitch's
new Marina Del Rey condo, despite a security system, and to
kill him in self-defense after planting three proposed reconciliation
letters in a drawer and removing his two handguns from their
hiding places. At my screening of Enough, most
of the audience consisted of single women who doubtless saw
much in their own lives reflected in the film. The advice
for women is obvious, from reporting domestic violence promptly,
to making sure that they have financial resources that cannot
be terminated by her spouse, to learning some self-defense
techniques. Interestingly, while men often bellyache that
Title IX bleeds men's physical education programs, woman can
now point to Enough as ample justification for
the principle that men and women should be given an equal
chance to be physically fit. MH
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