Heartbreaker 2010

Charming and magnetic Alex, his sister Mélanie, and her husband Marc run a discreet, high-stakes business that helps clients break up relationships—but only when the woman is unhappy without realizing it. They craft elaborate, customized schemes for concerned friends and family, deceiving the women until each one falls for the act. After the moment the woman believes she has found her missing spark, Alex reveals that she has made him come alive again, but that it is too late for him; the women, convinced they’ve found something better, typically leave their relationships to pursue the kind of connection he pretends to offer.

They are hired by a wealthy florist and gangster to stop the upcoming wedding of his daughter Juliette to Jonathan, a wealthy Englishman whom the father disapproves of. The clock is merciless: they have only ten days to derail the union. After conducting extensive research, it becomes clear that the couple are genuinely in love and perfectly matched, and there are no obvious “flaws” to exploit the way they usually do. The job grows even more complicated when Alex is pulled back into the scheme by debt—he is massively in debt to a loan shark due to his lavish spending on the business—and he ends up accepting the assignment with only five days left, compromising his own principles.

When Juliette travels to Monte Carlo to begin preparations for the wedding, Alex poses as her bodyguard to gain close, constant access to her. The trio bugs her hotel room and even checks into the adjoining room, all in pursuit of intel. While on the job, Alex discovers things that Juliette genuinely likes and imitates those interests to win her trust, including the film Dirty Dancing, Roquefort cheese, and the music of George Michael. The attraction between them deepens, and the two begin to fall for each other, but the early arrival of Jonathan threatens their tight control over the situation.

The night before the wedding, Juliette grows restless, and she and Alex slip out for a spontaneous evening, recreating the iconic final dance from Dirty Dancing. The following morning, Juliette confesses her feelings for him. Alex begins to perform his usual closing script, but the weight of his deception hits him, and he abruptly changes tack—telling Juliette that she should go ahead and marry Jonathan.

The next day, as the group leaves the hotel, Mélanie spots Juliette’s case file and, watching the events unfold, realizes that her father hired Alex to derail the wedding. At the airport, Mélanie gently admonishes Alex for choosing a counterfeit version of love over something real, urging him not to trade genuine connection for empty, short-lived affairs. He bolts toward the conflict, sprinting to the wedding from the terminal.

Meanwhile, Juliette’s father explains that while Jonathan is decent, she would likely be bored with him. As they walk down the aisle, he reveals that Alex refused to take any payment for the contract. Juliette, moved and unsettled, turns away from the ceremony to seek out Alex. They reunite and share a kiss after Alex confesses that he hates Roquefort and George Michael, that he has never watched Dirty Dancing, that his life is financially precarious and spent sleeping in his office, yet that he needs to see her every day.

Back at the makeshift “non-wedding,” it’s revealed that the loan shark turning up at the heart of the operation works for Juliette’s father, complicating the moral web even further. Sophie, Juliette’s scheming friend, flirts with Jonathan, adding another layer of tension. Mélanie and Marc attempt another ruse on their own, but Marc’s charm simply isn’t enough to mimic Alex’s effortless allure.