Is Violence in Film Realistic? Essay

Enough was a movie made in 2002 featuring Jennifer Lopez as the female lead character. The plot of the story centers about Slim Hiller, played by Jennifer Lopez, who is a young mother and is married to an abusive husband. After years of abuse, she escapes but continues to hide her identity as well as her child’s. Time and time again her husband finds them, and Slim must again suffer violence at the hands of her husband. Eventually, Slim realizes that she will never escaper her husband and must come up with a different approach if she is ever to live freely again. She learns to defend herself and sets a trap for her husband. When he abuses her the next time, it will be the last time, because she kills him in self defense. This is a great action packed movie but not very realistic in terms of depicting domestic violence against women. Domestic violence is messy, physically and emotionally, and never comes as neatly packaged as in the movie. Domestic violence victims are women who have struggled with an abusive husband for a long time. She has children, and no means to support herself. She is physical and emotionally dependent on the man that beats her. A domestically abused woman rarely leaves her husband, and she spends the bulk of her life juggling between tolerating the physical abuse and trying to appease her husband. Women who are battered in real life do not want or get revenge. Abused women do not want to kill their husbands they just want to be left alone. Also, in real life domestic violence is much more subtle and often ends in death of the woman not the man. Depicting domestic violence in film does two contrasting things. The depiction can bring to light society’s epidemic of domestic violence. However, because it is a movie, and fiction it can easily be dismissed – as just a movie! I feel that domestic violence was not portrayed realistically in Enough. The movie was meant to be an action packed story where the good girl wins, unfortunately that never happens in real life. Works Cited Enough. Dir. Michael Apted. Perfs. Jennifer Lopez, Bill Cambell. Film. Columbia Pictures, 2002.