Enough (film)

Plot

The film begins in a Los Angeles diner where a waitress named Slim (Jennifer Lopez) works with her best friend, Ginny (Juliette Lewis). She receives unwelcome romantic advances from Robbie, a customer who teases her about her name. Another man in the diner, Mitch Hiller (Billy Campbell), reveals that the customer had made a bet that he would be able to convince Slim to sleep with him. Soon after, Slim falls in love with and marries Mitch, and they have a child named Gracie (Tessa Allen). Years later, Slim finds out Mitch has been cheating on her with a French woman named Darcelle. She confronts him and he admits it, but also insisting Darcelle means nothing to him. Slim becomes angry and threatens to leave, which enrages Mitch, who becomes violent, slapping and punching her in the face. He gives her a warning, saying that he makes the money and gets to do whatever he likes, implying he wants an open marriage. Mitch refuses to stop his affair unless she wants to fight him. The next day, Slim confides in Mitch's mother (Janet Carroll); she asks Slim what she did to make Mitch angry, implying he has a history of physical abuse. Ginny advises Slim to leave and imprison Mitch, but Slim does not want to hurt Gracie. She then goes to pick up Gracie from school, only to discover Mitch had already picked her up. Panicked that Mitch might have left town with her, she calls Mitch, who tells her that he took Gracie to the zoo.

During dinner that night, Mitch further insults Slim for confiding in his mother, while staying civil in front of Gracie. Having had enough, Slim plans her escape with her friend's help. However, while escaping late at night, Mitch foils her plan by breaking out of a closet he is hiding in and grabbing her by the hair. He throws her to the ground and begins kicking her in the chest, while Gracie is asleep on the sofa. Slim's friends, waiting outside the house, hear the struggle and break in. Then Mitch threatens them with a gun, before Phil (Christopher Maher) picks up Gracie to use as a witness while exhorting her to look at her father. Unable to shoot the man with Gracie watching him, Mitch lets Slim escape. Slim retreats to a cheap motel, having had her credit cards frozen by Mitch. However, they are only there for a short time before Mitch tracks them down. Slim then goes on the run to Seattle where she briefly stays with her old boyfriend Joe (Dan Futterman). Some of Mitch's friends, disguised as FBI agents, show up at Joe's house claiming to investigate a "kidnapping." She leaves Joe behind and, in need of money, goes to her father (Fred Ward), named Jupiter, who is a wealthy philanderer and does not know about Slim's existence. When Slim informs him she is his daughter, he doesn't believe them and gives them only $12, thinking they are homeless and just want money. Slim leaves, disheartened with Jupiter, and moves with Gracie to Michigan. However, after Jupiter is threatened by Mitch's men, he is piqued by the situation and decides to help. He sends them enough money for a house.

Slim buys a house and changes her name to Erin Ann Shleeter. Although their future looks bright after a visit from Joe, Mitch's friend tracks them down, passing the information on to Mitch. Mitch comes to the area, and hides in Slim's house. As she is going about her morning routine, to her horror, Mitch suddenly appears from the shadows in her hallway, saying he wants Slim back, promising "it will be different." When she refuses, he attacks, waking Gracie, who runs to help her mother, and jerks on his hair. Mitch flings Gracie to the floor, which creates a diversion, and allows an opportunity for Slim to retaliate with pepper spray. Snatching up Gracie, as Mitch rolls on the floor in pain, she is prepared for a fast get-away, having an escape plan. A car chase ensues between Slim and Robbie (Noah Wyle, revealed earlier as Mitch's "wing man" during the encounter at the diner years before) while Gracie screams in the background. Realizing she cannot live her life in fear, Slim goes into hiding in San Francisco, hires a woman who looks like her to keep her cover, and sends Gracie away to Hawaii with her best friend Ginny to get her out of harm's way. She prepares herself with a self-defense trainer (Bruce A. Young) who teaches her Krav Maga, since self-defense is not murder. During her training, he gives Slim the final lesson - if Mitch knocks her down, she is to hold on to his voice and awaken when he is about to attack or kick her. She returns to Los Angeles, breaks into Mitch's new home and waits for him there to return home from work, after hiding his guns and blocking the phone connections, so he cannot call the police. When he arrives, Slim makes her presence known once he realizes someone's there. She approaches him to begin fighting, but when he says he cannot hit her, she asks him why he could do it before when she was defenseless. She provokes him, and in the ensuing fight, Slim uses her new skills, beating Mitch until he becomes unconscious. After an opportunity to kill him with an object, she cannot bear to do it and throws the object away. She calls Ginny saying she cannot kill him, and while on the phone Mitch hits her from behind with a lamp. Slim puts into practice what she learned in her training and trips, beats and kicks him in the chest and sends him off a balcony to his death. She calls the police, who rule her actions as self-defense.

With Mitch no longer a threat, Slim and Gracie go on to live a happy life in Seattle with Joe.

Cast

Casting and filming

Enough, produced by Columbia Pictures, is directed by Michael Apted and written by Nicholas Kazan. On November 9, 2000, New York Daily News reported that Lopez was in talks to star in Enough, "which follows a newly married young woman's descent into domestic violence after her dream man physically abuses her, causing her to go on the run". Sandra Bullock was originally cast to play Slim, a waitress. However, Variety magazine reported in November 2000 that Bullock had to back out of Enough because of scheduling conflict with another film.

MTV News's David Basham reported on May 19, 2001, that Lopez was cast as Slim, and Once and Again actor Billy Campbell was cast as Mitch, a "wealthy contractor" and Slim's abusive husband. Juliette Lewis, Noah Wyle, Dan Futterman and Fred Ward were also announced to be co-starring in the film. According to Basham, filming began on May 21, 2001, and took place on location in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. During a documentary featured on a special edition DVD of the film, Kazan said Lopez was "very good" at creating the character on film "through unscripted details, physical gestures and fiddling with props." He described her emotional acting as "perfect pitch". Apted, who heard urban legends that Lopez was a diva confessed that "She was fantastic" and good to work with. He also noted Lopez "very much on the case, and that was very impressive." However, years later Lopez confessed that during the filming of Enough, she overworked and had a nervous breakdown. In 2008, she stated: "I was suffering from a lack of sleep. And I did have a kind of nervous breakdown. I froze up on set. Well, not on a set, but in my trailer. I was like, I don't want to move, I don't want to talk, I don't want to do anything. It was on that movie, Enough. Yeah, I did. I had a nervous breakdown."

Themes

Enough is a thriller film which also details an abusive relationship. Kazan said it's "About the worst aspect of the male psyche is that males have been taught, traditionally, to expect to get what they want. Much of the problems that men have, or the problems that men impose on women, have to do with feeling like they’re entitled, and that women should do what men want." Ryan J. Downey of MTV News said "Is America ready to see its favorite iced-up, well-manicured diva, Jennifer Lopez, all glammed-down and kicking ass as a battered wife?".

Explaining the concept of the film, Lopez stated: "There's twists and turns and it's exciting [...] but it also has a message, which is what attracted me to it in the first place, which is an empowering thing." Describing its message, she said "[If] you're in these negative situations, negative relationships, whatever, you can get out [...] The power to get out of those things is always within yourself. That's the message of the movie." When Lopez read the script, she knew she was "going to have to do [the] whole sequence at the end" which featured an act that required her to "become a believable lean, mean fighting machine." Lopez then thought she should learn T'ai Chi or Tae Kwon Do, but was worried about learning it at an expert level in a short period of time. Her personal trainer then suggested that she study Krav Maga, the "official self-defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces which has recently become trendy in the States. The fighting style focuses on combating realistic scenarios with moves that are based on common, instinctual reactions", according to MTV News. Talking about the system, Lopez said: "[Krav Maga] levels out the playing field between men and women [...] Where it doesn't matter how big or tall or strong you are. You can actually maneuver around that. It's about getting out of the way, counter attacking and using whatever you can to get the upper hand."

During an interview with Lopez, journalist Diane Sawyer of ABC News noted that people "in the abuse counseling industry, have said you can't tell women that, they can't do that. That something that's dangerous, even to see it in their minds." Lopez responded by stating: "Well, you know, this is a movie that has the touches upon those themes, but really, it's a thriller [...] it's about empowering yourself in any situation, you know, that you have. When I read the script, I saw it as, you have the power within yourself, no matter how severe the situation can be, to change whatever that is, to find that power within yourself to change any negative situation."

Release

Enough was planned to be released in September 2001, but was pushed back to "early". Ultimately, it was released on May 24, 2002. With a production budget of $38 million, the film did make a profit. After its opening week, Enough ranked at No. 5 on the American Box Office chart, grossing over $14 million having been screened across 2,623 theaters. The next week, it grossed $6.8 million, dropping to No. 7 at the Box Office, and grossed $3.7 million after its third week, falling to No. 9. Ultimately, Enough grossed $40 million domestically and a total of $51.8 million worldwide.

Home media

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the DVD of Enough on October 8, 2002, in Dolby Digital English and French languages, as well as subtitles. A VHS edition was released on March 4, 2003. A special widescreen edition containing an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 was released on September 16, 2003; it also included Spanish language options. It has a range of extras which includes three deleted scenes: "Strip Joint Break In", "Enough Is Enough" and "Krav Maga: Contact Combat". Lopez's music video for the song's soundtrack "Alive" is also included. During a "making-of" documentary for the film entitled "Max on the Set: Enough" Lopez stated she was attracted to Enough because it was "like a female Rocky". Cynthia Fuchs from PopMatters wrote an in-depth review of the special addition DVD release, and said: "Just why this film needs a second DVD release is unclear, except for the apparent diktat that there is no such thing as enough or even too much J-Lo".

Critical reception

On the review aggregator Metacritic, the film had an average score of 25 out of 100, based on 32 reviews from professional critics. At Rotten Tomatoes, 22% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 122 reviews. The film earned generally negative reviews from movie critics, although some praised Lopez's performance. Stephen Holden of The New York Times said Lopez "holds the screen in a star performance that has less to do with acting than with embodying a forceful, streetwise woman who stands up for herself", while commenting that its preview had "audience gasping" and "Enough does a better job than most movies of sustaining a mood of palpable physical menace, then confirming your worst fears". On the other hand, Alice King of Entertainment Weekly described the film's plot as "arduously nonsensical" and felt that Lopez lacked connection with her on-screen daughter Tessa Allen, commenting that: "All this to protect a helium-voiced little girl with whom Lopez has so little chemistry, it's as if she's handling garbage rather than a small child." A writer from Contactmusic.com was underwhelmed with the development of the film, noting that the film doesn't "utilize Slim's old friend and romantic interest enough, nor does it develop Slim's real and adopted fathers" while it "uses the tiresome old "kid" cliché. Gracie is, as always, just old enough to understand the situation, but not quite old enough to make an actual impact in the story." However, the writer did praise Lopez in the end sequence, "By the final scenes, despite their obviousness, I was as engrossed in the movie as I could have been, actually rooting for J. Lo to kick some bad guy butt". Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Lopez has an image of being sexy and tough, but her appeal as an actress is that she's down to earth and that her emotions are accessible. There's nothing cold about her." Additionally, LaSalle felt that "It's the most tension-producing movie out there right now", stating that "it has the biggest visceral kick, capable of inspiring blood lust in otherwise peaceful viewers.

ReelViews' James Berardinelli said Enough is director "[Michael] Apted at his most commercial, and, unfortunately, his least compelling." Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice called Campbell the film's "primary power source", "His steely gaze and overbearing quietude are forever tainted; "Once and Again" doesn't stand a chance in Lifetime reruns". Robert Koehler of Variety was negative, "Enough, a thriller detailing how a good wife gets back at an evil, possessive husband, is never provocative enough to generate strong emotional response." Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert called the film "tacky material" and was surprised to "see a director like Michael Apted and an actress like Jennifer Lopez" involved in it. Paula Nechack of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called Enough "implausible and ugly" and felt that it had already been done by actresses including Julia Roberts and Ashley Judd, and its script was "more than enough of a mess to tarnish her box-office luster." Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide reviewed the film negatively, but praised the ending sequence, "If ever a movie was undermined by its packaging, it's this formulaic thriller about a resourceful battered wife and the brutal husband who won't let her go [...] the entire promotional campaign is driven by the last 20 minutes, in which Slim becomes a lean, mean fighting machine and kicks the bastard's ass". Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club said "the film's idiocy works for Lopez: Every diva needs at least one camp classic on her résumé", while Desson Thomson from the Washington Post emphasized his disappointment with the film, stating: "In terms of actual social conscience, the movie gets a demagogic, rabble-rousing F. It also gets a failed grade for honest writing."

Jennifer Lopez was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her performance in the film (as well as for Maid in Manhattan) but lost in a tie to both Madonna for Swept Away and Britney Spears for Crossroads.

Soundtrack

The official score for Enough was composed by David Arnold, and released by Audio CD on June 4, 2002. In addition to its score, Lopez recorded the song entitled "Alive", which she co-wrote with her then-husband Cris Judd. Although it served as the song's soundtrack and was used during the film, it does not appear on the film's score.