I’ve seen the film Marriage Story twice. Following the uproar over a conversation Warren and Sanders had in 2018 about whether a woman can beat Donald Trump feels like watching it a third time.

Two couples: The fictional Nicole and Charlie, an amicable but divorcing duo with an eight-year-old son who want different things, and the real-life Warren and Sanders, like-minded good friends and political colleagues who both want to be president.

Befitting their long histories of mutual admiration and affection and their desire to protect what matters most (a child, a progressive movement), both couples initially observe non-aggression pacts: mediation instead of divorce lawyers for Nicole and Charlie, close policy alignments and no bad-mouthing for the presidential rivals. But as differences emerge and each seeks advantage in order to prevail, initial vows give way to some definite hot-mic moments.

So it goes in movies, in politics, and in life. The same experience is rarely received or recalled in the same way.

Given that a woman’s electability against Donald Trump has featured prominently in so many political conversations over the past three years, it’s entirely plausible that Sanders told Warren that a woman couldn’t win the presidency in 2020. Or maybe he just pointed out how a lying, sexist Trump would weaponize gender in a society riddled with outright misogyny and unconscious bias. It’s also entirely plausible that Warren heard his words correctly. Or that she didn’t, but understood the implicit message, “better not try,” a warning women hear all the time.

In Marriage Story, Nicole hears this warning, too, and for a long time heeds it. Every time she tries to implement their initial agreement to try living on both coasts, Charlie dismisses her wishes. After all, they are a New York family, with a flourishing theater life there. Besides, LA, television . . . Seriously? Nicole continually acquiesces, losing herself in the process until she has had enough. No wonder she is susceptible to the ruthlessly empathic and effective divorce attorney Nora, who knows exactly how to fashion Nicole’s inchoate dissatisfactions and longings into the story of a reclaimed self.

The shift from acquiescence to “Enough!” seems abrupt, excessive. But it comes from tolerating a lengthy accumulation of insensitivities, intended and inadvertent injuries, and the preeminence of others’ needs and desires until finally we reach a tipping point. Suddenly, we’ve had it.

Getting fed up is at the heart of so much conflict and also of so much necessary change, both personally and socio-politically. It drives not only Nicole’s and Warren’s persistence, but also the #MeTooMovement, Black Lives Matter, Sanders’s (and Trump’s) political appeal, and the success of so many women candidates in the 2018 mid-terms.

“Enough!” It drives a great many of us. For better and for worse.

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A slightly different version of this piece initially appeared in NCSPP’s Impulse, a publication for therapists. The topicality of the Oscars and the political spat is past, but the themes are timeless.