Sadly, Enough isn’t a film about the perils of celebrity overexposure. But if it were, wouldn’t the casting of Jennifer Lopez be perfect? Enough indeed. Lately, I’ve found myself muttering that very word whenever I see yet another image of J.Lo on the cover of some supermarket-newsstand magazine or hear her on the radio, writing cheques with her attitude that her thin voice can’t quite cash.
Nope, Enough is a film about a woman whose abusive husband pushes her too far and suffers the consequences. It’s a girl-power revenge fantasy, one of those trifling little Hollywood flicks that asks only that we wait around long enough to find out exactly how much crap our heroine will endure before she finally kicks the evil hubby’s cheating/stalking/threatening ass.
In this case, it turns out to be quite a bit of crap. The film sets up the marriage between Slim (Lopez) and Mitch (Billy Campbell) in a few short minutes. (In the film’s simplistic terms, his display of chivalry in the diner where she works makes matrimony a foregone conclusion.) He’s successful, ambitious, the kind of fella who gets what he wants—and what he wants is to take care of Slim.
Needless to say, she eventually finds out that Mitch is cheating on her. When she confronts him about it, she finds out he’s also the kind of fella who thinks a backhand is strong enough for a man but made for a woman. But by then, she’s got a little girl (the inexcusably cute Tessa Allen), a nice house, all the trappings that seem like such a trap in an abusive relationship.
She does get out, with some help from friends at the diner, but Mitch has an obsessive streak as wide as his wallet is deep. He dispatches a couple of goons to rough up Slim’s ex-boyfriend and threaten her wealthy father (Fred Ward). Having thus been chased through various states and identities, Slim decides that she’s had, well, you know. One month of self-defense lessons later, she’s ready for the main event. Think of it as a romance novel in reverse, where the lovers start out happily ever after and end up taking swings at each other.
It doesn’t take long to start thinking this movie only exists as a vehicle for marketing the film division of J.Lo Inc. (not to mention the music division, who contributes a song to the soundtrack). Hell, if it weren’t for her name in the credits, this film would have gone straight to video. As a story, it’s barely weighty enough to support a music video (and even then it wouldn’t hold a feminist-statement candle to the brilliant, funny, provocative, disturbing video Guy Ritchie made for Madonna’s What It Feels Like for a Girl).
More’s the pity, because Jennifer Lopez the actress comes by her star status fairly. She has the engaging screen presence that Sandra Bullock used to have, a kind of Noo Yawk spunk mixed with more than a little vulnerability. But the kind of ubiquity Lopez has achieved over the last three years is all about being mainstream, which apparently means sticking to the watered-down Top 40 baby formula she serves up in her music career, and starring in thoroughly average films like this one. Gone is the smart-sexy Lopez who engaged in all that great verbal foreplay with George Clooney in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight; now we get a passive-aggressive Lopez who spends nearly an entire film crying melodramatically over her husband’s physical and mental abuse before maneuvering him into an unequivocally premeditated kickboxing match in his house.
That said, the climactic showdown does give a certain visceral pleasure as we watch poor old Mitch go from mocking disbelief to anger to helpless rage as Slim applies his comeuppance while nimbly dodging his lumbering attacks. Lopez shines here, trash-talking and baiting her opponent with jaw-thrusting élan. It’s a welcome change from the pathetic she-tragedy we’ve witnessed before, but it’s a cheap thrill at best; we’re always aware that the entire fight is about as realistic as wrestling, and the outcome just as predetermined. Don’t pay theatre admission for this one, but if you’re after a rental that will give you your daily dose of J.Lo, Enough is enough.
(2/4)