Enough

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Enough
Promotional film poster
Directed by	Michael Apted
Produced by	Rob Cowan Irwin Winkler
Written by	Nicholas Kazan
Starring	Jennifer Lopez, Billy Campbell, Juliette Lewis, Dan Futterman, Fred Ward, Tessa Allen, Noah Wyle
Music by	David Arnold
Cinematography	Rogier Stoffers, Rodney Taylor
Editing by	Rick Shaine
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	May 24, 2002
Running time	116 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$38,000,000^[1]
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

For other uses, see Enough (disambiguation).

Enough is a 2002 Hollywood psychological thriller. It stars Jennifer Lopez as Slim, a young waitress who one day finds the man of her dreams in the diner where she works. A few years later, they have a young daughter, Gracie (Tessa Allen), and it is revealed that her "perfect" husband, Mitch (Billy Campbell) is abusive towards her and is cheating on her.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with Slim working as a diner waitress. After a male customer (Noah Wyle) makes lewd remarks toward Slim, another customer, Mitch, defends her honor and forces the first customer out. Slim is smitten by the chivalrous Mitch and quickly falls in love with him. The film then skips forward in time, showing Mitch and Slim's wedding, their first house, and the birth of their daughter, Gracie. Throughout all these milestones, however, Mitch slowly reveals a darker, threatening and almost sociopathic side to himself. He drops verbal hints in casual conversation, often stating that he's a man "who always gets what he wants," and becomes steadily more distant and unattentive toward Slim.

Eventually, Slim discovers that Mitch has been cheating on her with several women. Her distress and confusion is coupled by Mitch's attitude about it: He feels no wrongdoing in his adultery and announces that he has no plans to stop. When Slim threatens to leave, however, Mitch loses his temper and beats her, first slapping her, then quickly progressing to violent punches. Mitch makes it clear that Slim and Gracie are his possessions, and if Slim tries going to the police for help, he will use his money and power to frame her as a drug addict and unfit mother, thereby gaining sole custody of Gracie. Slim eventually musters the nerve to go to the police herself, only to discover that the system is indeed against her - should she file a report, she stands a good chance of being attacked by Mitch again and losing Gracie in the process as well.

Slim succumbs to feelings of hopelessness about her situation and confides to Ginny, her best friend and coworker at the diner. Given their limited options, Ginny encourages Slim to secretly run away from Mitch with Gracie in tow. With the help of two other diner employees sympathetic to Slim's plight, the four organize a daring midnight escape from Mitch's house. Mitch, however, discovers Slim running away with Gracie, and begins beating her to death. The ensuing noise draws Ginny and the two others into the house, where they manage to rescue Slim and Gracie and keep Mitch at bay long enough to escape.

The four realize that none of their houses are safe, because Mitch knows all of their addresses. Slim and Gracie then stay at a motel, but the relentless Mitch finds them there and begins breaking into their room. Climbing out a window, Slim and Gracie run aboard a bus, just narrowly escaping Mitch a second time.

Eventually, Slim and Gracie are able to escape to Seattle, where she meets up with her former boyfriend Joe (Dan Futterman), who still has feelings for her. However, Mitch has more connections than Slim imagined - the rude man from the diner at the beginning of the film is noneother than a corrupt police officer named Robbie, who secretly works for Mitch. Robbie reveals that he and Mitch have a long history of scamming women as they did to Slim, working as a team to corner women into defenseless situations.

Using Robbie's connections as a cop, Mitch is able to track Slim almost anywhere she goes; Mitch also manages to cancel or freeze all of Slim's financial assets, thereby leaving her destitute and with no money. Mitch soon tracks Slim down in Seattle and sends three thugs to Joe's residence in search of his wife and daughter. Slim and Gracie manage to hide behind a heater vent during this encounter and very narrowly avoid being found and captured.

Realizing that she can't stay in any one place for very long, Slim flees from Joe with Gracie. Mother and daughter essentially become fugitives, embarking on a never-ending sojourn across the country while trying to hide from Mitch and his henchmen. Slim resorts to using wigs and other physical disguises, limits her contact with the outside world, changes her name as well as Gracie's, and booby-traps her residences for protection. Unfortunately, all of these measures fail and they are once again tracked down when they reach Michigan, again only barely escaping from Mitch's henchmen.

After this incident, Slim realizes that her ongoing attempt at running away has failed and will no longer help either herself or Gracie. With a child custody hearing in Los Angeles in one month, Slim consults a San Francisco lawyer. Just like the police earlier, the lawyer tells Slim that the odds stacked against her are high. The lawyer also informs her that, should she go to the custody hearing, Mitch will be able to easily find and kill her if he wants.

Slim then has an epiphany that she has had "enough" of this ongoing torture, and decides to make a one-on-one stand against Mitch prior to the hearing. She secretly sends Gracie to live with Ginny for a month and spends the next few weeks training in Krav Maga combat techniques with a personal trainer, who builds in her a confident, confrontational fighting spirit that Slim had lacked up until that point. She learns not to fear Mitch even though he is bigger, stronger, and a man, and increases her speed, stamina and agility in a series of montages.

After Slim has trained, she sneaks into Mitch's new house in Los Angeles while the latter is off at work. She then spends the day preparing for the fight-to-the-finish between her and her husband that night. Using a metal detector, she finds and gets rid of Mitch's various firearms (hidden throughout the house), and she also hides any kitchen knives or other objects that could be wielded as weapons. She familiarizes herself with the layout of the house, practicing mock fighting scenarios, and plants letters of evidence in Mitch's nightstand (which will serve to inform the police of Mitch's past violent history against Slim). She also cuts the phone cables in the house and installs a device that blocks out cell phone signals. She dons fighting attire and heavy combat boots, and silently awaits the evening.

Mitch arrives at home that evening and, upon entering his house, all the lights go out. As Mitch discovers to his chagrin that all his guns, phones and other things are out of commission, Slim appears and challenges Mitch to hand-to-hand combat. She surprises Mitch by her new-found courage, and further surprises him by striking the first of several blows, all the while mocking his masculinity. Enraged, Mitch charges at her, only to swing and miss, as Slim has hoped; her plan is to attack him while simultaneously dodging his punches, thereby wearing him out so she can then take the upper hand in the end. Her plan seems to be working, as Mitch becomes more angry by Slim's mocking words, and more exhausted by chasing after her. Eventually Mitch charges at Slim and succeeds in hitting his head against a marble countertop, and is knocked out cold.

Slim pounces on this opportunity and grabs a heavy stone cutting board. Preparing to give him the final blow that will end it all, she suddenly throws the stone away - Slim realizes she can't do it; unlike Mitch, she's not a violent person. She turns off her cell-phone blocker and hastily calls Ginny for advice. Suddenly, Mitch regains consciousness and takes Slim by surprise, knocking her down with a floor lamp. Mitch hangs up on Ginny and glowers over a prostrate Slim, whom he thinks he has defeated. Just then, a voice-over of Slim's trainer is heard, galvanizing her into action and giving her the right tools to defeat Mitch once and for all. Slim then comes to and manages to knock Mitch to the floor. She throws unrelenting multiple punches, all the while thinking about each and every punch that Mitch had ever given her or Gracie. Finally, Slim kicks Mitch squarely in the stomach, sending him falling backwards over a bannister. He makes a fatal landing on a glass dining table below; it is finally over.

Slim is then seen throwing her throwing away her fighting paraphernalia into a nearby body of water. She sits outside Mitch's house as police cars are heard heading towards the house. An officer informs Slim that Ginny had called the police to save her. She reveals that Mitch is inside; upon being asked if Mitch is still armed and dangerous, she merely shakes her head "no."

The film then cuts to an airport scene, where Slim awaits anxiously for Gracie. Ginny and Gracie appear and an overjoyed Slim caresses her daughter. Gracie asks Slim where they're going and she replies by saying, "Wherever you want." Gracie then says she would like to go to the Emerald City (Seattle). Slim responds by saying, "I was thinking the same thing."

In the end credits, Slim, Joe, and Gracie are together on a ferry, enjoying the beautiful scenery. Slim and Joe hold hands, presumably back together and happy.