Enough

Am I actually going to review this crappy movie?  Yes I am.  It is the only thing I watched in its entirety this weekend so it gets the review.  This weekend was full of partial movie watching.  Saturday morning I watched most of the 1932 ‘Scarface’.  It was really good compared to most of the other gangster films of that era.  I didn’t watch the end though because everyone started waking up and filtering into the living room.  I had to go run some errands.

Sunday afternoon we tried to sit through ‘The Dark Crystal’.  I just deleted a whole paragraph as to WHY I ordered it from Netflix, but suffice it to say that it is an unhappy situation and I am unable (unwilling?) to cope with some of the personality differences around the house.  Anyway, the puppet show was so much more boring than I remembered.  I fell asleep during the middle and then left the room to go do ANYthing else.

In the den, I decided to watch the 1983 ‘Scarface’.  I love this movie.  I knew about the 1932 version but I had never seen it.  Now that I saw (most of it) it was cool to see the similarities between the two.  I got about half way through it and went back out to the living room to hang out with Teresa.  She was watching another Netflix order and this one I sat (painfully) through the whole thing.

It is easy enough to knock a chick-flick.  To paraphrase Hank, “It’s like punching out a 7-year-old.  Satisfying?  YES!  But nothing you want to make a career out of.”  “Enough” isn’t standard chick-flick fare.  Ordinarily, girl meets boy, they get involved, there is a crisis, they overcome the crisis, a lesson is learned and they live happily ever after.  OK, maybe it IS a typical chick-flick…

Girl meets boy:  I nailed the “plot twist” before the lines were even out of Noah Wylie’s mouth.  But Jennifer Lopez ( no, I will NOT call her by the abbreviated name, it’s fucking stupid!  However, she get’s 1 point for being the first person I heard it applied to…) is a waitress who falls in love with a customer.

Get involved:  They marry and she is living a life of luxury; big house, big cars, a beautiful daughter and successful husband.

Crisis:  Husband is a possessive and abusive philanderer.  She tries to leave but he is strong, powerful and deviously intelligent.  She eventually runs but can never stay hidden for very long.  Of course, she never reports the abuse because she wants to protect her child from the stigma.  Meanwhile, Daddy’s not allowed around, they change their names, they move from place to place, violent car chases and 50 mile drives to use the phone.  I didn’t see any sign of mental retardation in the kid but unless she’s in a coma, she’s going to figure out something’s up…  I guess it’s easier to battle abuse/custody in the courts when you never made one report of it?  In real life, the cops come get her because she kidnapped the child from the father.

Overcome crisis:  She stays alive by becoming devious in her own right.  Making preparations like she was in a Tom Clancy novel, she stays one step ahead of the abusive husband.  She takes classes in self-defense and self-confidence and then beats the crap out of her husband, killing him.

Lesson learned:  I have no idea.  I was so busy talking with Teresa about how stupid the woman was and how it would go down in real life.  Teresa was telling me how she’d do it and I was giving her pointers on how to get away with it.  I must have missed the “Springer Moment” that brings the ugly circus to a nice and tidy point.

Happily ever after:  Yeah, if you believe in movie endings maybe but not in real life.  (Sorry, IRL.  Becca’s been after me to learn to chat-abbreviate)  IRL, this woman will jump at the slightest noise for the rest of her life.  The child will never trust her mother again.  For all the ‘protecting’ she did, there was a lot of damage because Mommy never told her what was going on or why she couldn’t see Daddy.  They leave the ending open so you can assume that she’s going back to Seattle to see her boyfriend but IRL, she’d better pack a wetsuit because the boyfriend is at the bottom of Lake Michigan from the visit earlier in the film.

As a movie, it’s got the whole “rooting for the chick” thing going for it and it’s slightly less boring than “Sleeping with the Enemy” so I guess this would count as a positive review?