While, of course, it’s always “refreshing” to see any scale of a production company throw women a bone by pushing projects through that feature “heroines” as the key players in a narrative, the longstanding issue with “the female con” genre has always fallen prey to relying on the third act “tactic” of eventually angling toward either the “natural” feminine dependence on a man for redemption and salvation or turning the tale into a love story. With the latest addition to the female con movie, The Hustle, there is initially brief hope that writer Jac Schaeffer (who rips the story off from Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning and Dale Launer’s 1988 movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, itself a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story) might not defer to the usual trope.
To a certain extent, she tries her best not to via the corporeal lens of Rebel Wilson as Penny Rust, the clumsy and oafish foil to the conventional beauty and refined poise of Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway, who seems to be quite a fan of the con movie of late, per her recent appearance in Ocean’s 8). But, in the end, there is undoubtedly that common reliance on a male presence to justify and sanction a woman’s “morally gray” area (which is almost as unappealing to a man as her starting to show signs of gray hair). And because The Hustle is so hollow in every other way (with the intended jokes and “gags” all falling flat), this is the cliched element of it that stands out the most.
Thinking back to other more iconic movies where women took the reins, there was at least something more memorable about the narrative or stakes of the con (the modern blueprint of which is arguably 1941’s The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck in the eventually soft role of con woman Jean Harrington). As was the case with 2001’s Heartbreakers, starring Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love-Hewitt as a mother-daughter con team perhaps too appropriately named Max and Page Conners. With Max concerned about Page’s desire to break out on her own, she enlists the help of her own mentor, Barbara (Anne Bancroft, RIP), to pull a con on Page that will get her to stay with her for “one more job” in Palm Beach, milieu extraordinaire for old men with money. But while Max works the aging tobacco tycoon William B. Tensy (Gene Hackman), Page eyes her own, more attractive in his youthfulness mark, Jack Withrowe (Jason Lee), unbeknownst to her overly controlling matriarch. And while viewers can see where the plot developing between Page and Jack is eventually going, it is the mother-daughter element of the script that makes it stand apart from the garden variety aspect of a female con movie surrendering its protagonist to the formula of “true love” clouding her ability to continue down her morally (though not financially) bankrupt path.
The same goes for 2006’s Priceless starring Audrey Tautou and Gad Elmaleh (though somewhat antithetically, the film is called Hors de Prix in its original French language, meaning “overpriced,” not “priceless”). Like The Hustle, this narrative, too, takes place on the Côte d’Azur, with our anti-heroine, Irène Mercier (Tautou), doggedly persistent in keeping herself accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle she’s used to at the price of sleeping with, expectedly, gross old men with undeserved amounts of money to spare. The mark she’s currently engaged to, Jacques (Vernon Dobtcheff), unfortunately catches her in bed with a man Irène has no idea is just the help (as he’s managed to conceal this fact from her for the second time since their initial encounter): Jean (Elmaleh). But now that Jacques has dumped her philandering, overpriced ass, Irène feels at least mildly secure with her new backup–until she realizes that his station in life is not even tantamount to her own. He’s too plebeian to bear, and Irène is sure to make him feel as such as she forces him to spend every last euro of his savings to keep her satisfied. This only lasts for about a week as his savings are but that of an average joe.
The second he’s out of money, Irène is out the door, in pursuit of someone who can better suit her extravagant needs in the long run. In this way, co-writers Pierre Salvadori (who directed) and Benoît Graffin highlight the notion that, for women, a man is only as useful as his bank account. A socioeconomic commentary on the ways in which women have been subjugated for so long that their only recourse was to better conceal prostitution to the more glamorous title of “gold digger,” even Priceless for as “frothy” and “frivolous” as it might be billed, has more to say than The Hustle. A movie that, at best, serves to continue peddling a bifurcated message about body positivity (most cohesively peddled, of late, by Lizzo’s “Tempo“) as it, on the one hand, paints Hathaway as the more adept seductress, but on the other, bills Wilson as just offbeatly charismatic enough to be more interesting to her male targets (because heaven forbid a single woman should have both qualities in one package–something another recent rom-com, I Feel Pretty, also reenforces). And though part of Penny’s usual shtick is to only hone in on men who are shallow and sleazy enough to look at her like she’s garbage once they think they’ve been catfished by the image she’s been providing them with for months, she sees there is something “different” about her and Josephine’s joint mark, Thomas Westerburg (Alex Sharp). The usual “he’s not like other guys” yarn that ends up fucking over so many women.
While the original versions of The Hustle come across as more empowering thanks to the one pulling the ultimate con being the woman (Janet, played by Shirley Jones and Glenne Headley, respectively), its supposedly “more modern” approach ends up setting the female con movie back several decades. But, one supposes, at least it’s good publicity for the town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, fictionalized as “Beaumont-sur-Mer.” But regardless of what town one is in on the French Riviera, the point seems to be it’s a goldmine for the gold digger who doesn’t let emotions get in the way. Who, in short, isn’t just another weak-willed woman who can’t hack a con without falling in love. Alas, we’ll just have to see if the next upcoming female con movie, Hustlers, breaks the mold.
