This film is possibly a representation of both love and violence in relation to gender. The mother-daughter team in this movie use "love" to swindle men out of their money. Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love-Hewitt play Angela and Paige, the con artists that use their good looks and a long list of cons to get meals, hotel rooms, marriages, and hefty divorce settlements when something "accidentally" goes wrong. Heartbreakers (David Mirkin, 2001) is an exploration of femininity, sexuality, and the usage and affects on the male population and the women that posses these traits. .
Angela marries at the beginning of the movie, for the thirteenth time, and creates a scam involving her daughter, only to divorce Dean, (Ray Liotta) seventeen hours after the marriage. They get away with a three-hundred thousand dollar settlement, but do not realize that it won't be the last they see of Dean. They end up in Palm Beach to try to con an old, heavy smoker, Tinsey (Gene Hackman). This is where Paige meets Jack, a man she initially wants to con out of his business; but since she is young, she falls in love with him instead. .
These women feel that men will only hurt them and leave them, so it is better to beat them at their own game, and then go ahead and take all of their assets. Angela, Paige's mother, is inherently afraid of being alone, and eventually ends up conning her own daughter in order for her to stay with her. She is trying to protect her from love as well, because "love is pain". She taunts and gets angry when she realizes that Paige has fallen in love, reaffirming that Paige would be no good at conning on her own because of the fact that she will fall in love with the men. .
Woods, 2.
At one point when Paige calls Jack (the one she falls in love with) cute, Angela reprimands her by saying "cute leads to feeling; feeling leads to screwing; and screwing leads to getting screwed." Angela insists that they kiss with their eyes open and makes up very clever religious reasons as to why they cannot sleep with the men.