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In Love Actually Mark was in love with Juliet, but he couldn't tell her, and now she's married to his best friend. Since it's Christmas he finally tells her (with cue cards). He smiles, and leaves ... but she runs out and kisses him and runs back inside. He then says, "Enough. Enough now."

What the heck does he mean? What's he thinking? I love the movie and the "deleted scenes" on the DVD share a little more insight into Mark's damaged character. But I've always been confused about his line and his motivation.

here's the 20-second scene

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I can only offer my own understanding of Mark's words here (even though I tried to snoop around Google a bit for an explanation, but no luck this time, maybe just this one site mentioning it briefly). Basically, what he said could be understood in two ways:

  • Explanation 1: He just got a kiss (even though more of a consolidation one than anything else, but still a kiss) from the girl he loves, which could start a lot of thoughts going on in his head. And since he knows he can't pursue her, because she's married to his best friend, he utters "Enough. Enough now." as in to stop the thoughts from swirling further.

  • Explanation 2 (one that I think is more probable): He utters "Enough. Enough now." as a decision that he's going to stop pursuing Julie from now on (because doing so would only bring trouble). Not a typical end of a love story, eh?

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    Good answer! I marked it as "The Answer". I do want to say that after watching that clip a few more times, I get the feeling Juliet wasn't giving him a consolation kiss -- it was a kiss that said, "I was attracted to you too, dummy, and you didn't do anything about it, and now we CAN'T do anything about it!!" Watch it again and tell me what you think. (We'd probably have to ask Keira Knightley to find out what she was REALLY thinking.) – BrettFromLA Oct 14 '14 at 18:18
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    Thanks! :) Yeah, there must've been some affection on her part too (otherwise she probably wouldn't go for the kiss at all), but in the end, as they both know things were complicated, the kiss had to be enough. – thosetinydreams Oct 14 '14 at 18:22
  • It's a bit of a British thing, meaning end it now and move on. The explanation 2 above is right. He's done his piece, expresse himself, now he must stop and move on. The way he says this is like an instruction to himself, to convince himself, like when you've eaten too much chocolate or icecream, but there is still lots left, you might say to yourself "Enough!" – Stephen Nov 19 '16 at 6:51

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