The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)
Goofs
Jump to:
Anachronisms (1) |
Continuity (13) |
Errors in geography (1) |
Factual errors (3) |
Miscellaneous (1) |
Incorrectly regarded as goofs (1) |
Plot holes (2) |
Revealing mistakes (1) |
Spoilers (6)
Anachronisms
When Henry gets on the el train and sees his mom, the type of train he is on did not exist during this time period. The train they are on is very modern with sealed windows and sliding doors whereas the trains during this time period in Chicago still had windows that opened and doors that opened accordion style. The modern train they are on were not in use until the 1990's.
Continuity
In the first meadow scene, young Clare pulls off her right shoe and throws it at the bushes, where she believes her brother Mark is hiding. When she runs to take the blanket to Henry, we see that it is her left shoe that is missing off her foot.
When it's their first kiss for Clare, she has a long, thin, brown hair clip on her hair, near the end of the scene, the hair clip becomes yellow.
Toward the beginning of the film Henry has just come inside from a driving rain storm. He is not wearing anything on his head and yet when he is indoors his hair is dry.
When Henry sits with his mother on the train she is reading "The Chicago Tribune" yet when she goes to turn the page, the banner on the inside of her paper reads "The Washington Post".
When Henry jumps back to the meadow on his wedding night he is clean-shaven in the bedroom, but has his typical scruffy beard in the meadow with the young Clare.
When Clare holds her lottery ticket and checks the numbers she wears gloves, no gloves and gloves again.
When Clare and Henry are arguing in Clare's studio after his vasectomy, the paper mold she's using goes from right-side up to upside-down and back again.
During one scene Henry talks to a young Clare in the meadow, she is wearing a dark purple t-shirt with a white pinafore dress. In some shots of Clare a white thread/piece of fluff is clearly visible on the dark background of her purple sleeve, it disappears and reappears between shots.
When Clare and Henry are arguing in Clare's studio after his vasectomy, the paper mold she's using goes from right-side up to upside down and back again.
When Clare leaves the apartment to go to work she's wearing tan boots. When she leaves work and sees Henry on bench waiting for her, she is wearing black shoes.
At the ending scene when Claire picks up the cloths Alba picks up the shoes that Henry was just wearing as he walked out of the bushes, the shoes have no laces in the holes. That would make it difficult to walk that long distance across the field.
In the wedding scene, the boutonniere that Clare's father is wearing changes from the first shot to the next shots. In the first shot, there are no green petals at the base of the flower. In the next shot, there are pronounced green petals, and accents next to the flower.
In the wedding scene, in the first shot of Clare with her father during the ceremony the shadows all are on the left-side of the wall behind them. In the next shot, the time of day is clearly much different and the shadows are all on the far-right side of the wall behind them.
Errors in geography
After Henry disappears and Clare is cleaning up the plate he dropped, you see him crossing the street and there is a Canadian flag flying on top of a building in the "Chicago" background.
Factual errors
The Calendar page for February 1984 pasted in Clare's diary has 30 days.
In Clare's diary, all of the 1984 calendars incorrectly line up the dates with the days of the week.
Michelle refers to the train as the subway. In Chicago, except for limited areas of track, the trains are elevated. They aren't called the subway but the "El"..
Miscellaneous
Why would a wedding band perform "Love Will Tear Us Apart" during the reception? It's a dark song about a disintegrating marriage, and the lyricist's (Ian Curtis of Joy Division) state of mind before committing suicide.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
If Henry time-travels nude, he would not have lock picks. However, it is possible to pick locks with paper clips, hairpins, basically a couple of stiff wires. These are not particularly difficult to find.
Plot holes
Henry states at the beginning of the movie that he tried to prevent the car accident that killed his mother but he could never make it in time. The fact that he could have to warned his mother against driving the car on that particular hapless night on several occasions before the accident remains a glaring omission. He could have called her on the phone, passed the message through young Clare or in fact warned her in person when he met her on the train three years before the accident or all of the above and anything else.
Before Henry's final time travel into the woods, he already knows that he is going to die by getting shot and being naked, having had no time to find cloths. As soon as he appears in the woods next to a deer, he should have known that a hunter might fire a shot in his direction. If he had simply ducked or moved behind a tree, he could have prevented his own death.
Revealing mistakes
When Clare is in the bathtub talking to Henry the water is clearly visible near the top of the tub. When the shot changes to a medium of Henry it is clear that the tub is empty of water.
Spoilers
Character error
At Alba's 5th birthday party, in the kitchen, when Clare is asking Henry about his discussion with Alba, a hair pin is seen dangling from the end of the loose piece of hair in Clare's face.
Continuity
In the fireworks scene just before Henry is about to die and Clare is sitting on Henry's lap, when we see her face she is dry-eyed. When the camera shows her face from the back looking at Henry she has clearly been crying, with a tear rolling down her face, and the next shot shows her dry-eyed again.
During Clare and Henry's fight about his vasectomy, Clare is seen working with a piece of handmade paper. She removes the mould and flips it upside down and presses on it to remove the moisture before couching it onto a piece of blotter paper. The camera zooms out and you can see it hasn't been flipped. Zoom in, zoom out again and its is back to being in the flipped position.
Plot holes
In the first scene that Henry appears naked on the floor after being shot, there is no blood left on the floor when he disappears. Or, at least the characters act as though there is no blood left. One might argue that the blood gets transported with the body when it time travels again; however, in the ending of the movie, the hunters find the blood-stained snow after Henry has traveled.
When Henry returns back to the time of his wedding he has gray hair. Upon his death he does not have gray hair, nor does he at any other "present time". While he might have gone gray and started coloring it at some point, it is unexplained how he returns with gray hair at his wedding (and on an earlier return to visit Clare).
Revealing mistakes
Towards the end of the movie, when Gomez and Henry talk about Henry's impending death, they mention how cold it is outside and yet, when they are talking, their breath is not visible.