Mitch Hiller (2024)

Mitchell "Mitch" Hiller is the main antagonist of the 2002 thriller film Enough. He is the abusive husband of the film's main protagonist Slim Hiller.

He was portrayed by Billy Campbell.

Biography[]

In Los Angeles, California, a woman named Slim works as a waitress at a dinner with her best friend Ginny. She receives unwelcome romantic advances from Robbie, a customer who teases her about her name. Another customer in the diner was named Mitch Hiller, revealing 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; she asks Slim what she did to make Mitch angry, implying that their family has a history of physical abuse. Ginny advises Slim to leave and press charges against 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.

That night, during dinner, Mitch further insults Slim for confiding in his mother, while staying civil in front of Gracie. Having had enough, Slim plans her escape with Ginny's help. However, while escaping late at night, Mitch foils her by 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. Mitch threatens them with a gun, before Phil 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 after Mitch has her credit cards frozen. 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, before some of Mitch's friends disguised as FBI agents investigating a "kidnapping" appear at Joe's house. She leaves Joe behind and, in need of money, goes to her father, Jupiter, a wealthy philanderer who has never met his daughter before. Slim tells him who she is, but he does not believe her and gives her $12 to go away. Slim leaves, disheartened, and moves with Gracie to Michigan. However, after Jupiter is threatened by Mitch's friends, he realizes that Slim is indeed his child and decides to help, sending 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, hiding 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 her, waking Gracie, who runs to help her mother, and jerks on his hair. Mitch flings Gracie to the ground, and Slim retaliates by squirting him 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 (revealed earlier as Mitch's "wing man" during the encounter at the diner years before), while Gracie screams in the background. Realizing that Mitch will eventually kill her, 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 Ginny to get her out of harm's way. She prepares herself with a self-defense instructor who teaches her Krav Maga, since self-defense is not murder. He tells her the hardest lesson - if he hits her, 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 traps him there, after hiding his guns and blocking the phone connections, so he cannot call the police. When he says he cannot hit her, she asks him why he could do it before when she was defenseless. In the ensuing fight, Mitch keeps taunting Slim that she'll be the one who will lose since she broke into the house and he'll keep Gracie forever, but Slim keeps on throwing his words back, saying that her actions will be ruled as self-defense. Slim uses her new skills to eventually beat Mitch unconscious. She cannot bear to kill him, however, and calls Ginny for help. While she is on the phone, an enraged Mitch hits her from behind with a lamp. Slim puts into practice what she learned in her training, quickly gaining the confidence to kill Mitch once and for all. She beats him to a pulp and weakens him enough that Mitch is unable to fight back anymore, before she finally kicks him in the chest and sends him falling off a balcony to his death. She calls the police, who rule her actions as self-defense, and later, she and Gracie move on to live a happy life in Seattle with Joe, thus destroying all sense of victory Mitch was hoping to gain.

Personality[]

Not much was revealed about Mitch's backstory, except that he had a history of violence and aggressiveness in the past, and his mother's reaction to blame Slim for the abuse implied that he inherited this behavior from his family and decided it was acceptable. Mitch was shown to be a very selfish, entitled, controlling, and highly remorseless and egotistical individual since the very beginning of the film. Even though his mother knew about her son's abusive nature and mentality, even she seemed to apparently underestimate his ruthlessness, as she tried to request Slim to be understanding towards Mitch and reconsider bringing back his daughter, even though Mitch had been unwilling to reason or try to negotiate a solution with Slim, and instead wanted to have all control. This also appeared to be supported by the fact that Mitch's mother clearly was happy for her daughter-in-law and clearly loved her granddaughter, while Mitch clearly saw them as property he was entitled to control.

As for his negative qualities, Mitch conned women into sleeping with him with the help of his partner, and later forced a random man to sell his house to him and Slim without even scheduling a walkthrough of the property, first by giving him an overpriced offer, then intimidating the man after he expressed reluctance. Mitch also ignored Slim's request to hold Gracie when she was born while he was fawning over her. Mitch repeatedly neglected his family in favor of self-gratification and importance by cheating on Slim repeatedly with other women. When confronted, Mitch revealed himself to be quite misogynistic, stating that "Men and Women have different needs", implying he strongly believes in the notion that women are made to serve men, and stated that as the breadwinner, he deserved to make the rules and choices for how their marriage should be, while blaming her for not understanding his position, and implying that she should be more accepting of this, since if it weren't for him, she would be living a unpleasant life.

Despite his selfishness and egotism, Mitch was hypocritical in that within minutes of striking Slim, he suddenly changed his tune and displayed an obsessive attitude. He admitted to Slim that he felt that "Love is a powerful thing" and that he would "refuse to live without her", implying that he is also emotionally unstable. This also appears to be a major factor in his affairs, as he wants control of both his marriage and mistresses at the same time, even though logically he can have one, as this would potentially destroy both of his separate lifestyles. This implies that Mitch would never truly be satisfied with both his marriage and side relationships, and he would keep doing it until it destroyed him, as it did.

Having become paranoid that Slim would leave, Mitch began to keep tabs on Slim, while also becoming more prone to short-term mood swings and becoming more hostile to her every time she began to resist his control of the situation. After she escaped, Mitch did everything in his power to get her and Gracie back, implying abandonment and rejection issues. He was also shown to be very jealous when he discovered that Slim was back with her ex-boyfriend Joe, and was prepared to kill her over it. This implies that Mitch may have a comorbid case of Antisocial, Borderline, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders.