About Schmidt (2002) - 28 mistakes

Continuity: In the scene at Jack Nicholson's retirement party, check out his wine glass during the second toast. It keeps changing positions.

Continuity: When Warren Schmidt's daughter, Jeannie, has made him lunch and they are having a conversation about the choice of coffin he purchased for her mother's funeral, there is a vacuum cleaner that appears, disappears and moves from right to left of a built-in wall curio cabinet. This vacuum cleaner action takes place in the closeup shots of Jeannie, to her right.

Continuity: When Warren's daughter, Jeannie, fixes him a sandwich for lunch, while on camera, Warren is seen taking two bites from the sandwich. The sandwich is shown with a bite missing and then appears later to have been uneaten.

Factual error: When Warren is leaving a message from a payphone to his friend that had an affair with his wife, the recording abruptly stops and we hear the operator's voice say, "To erase and re-record your message press 3." But Warren presses the pound button (you can tell he does this because he pushes the button in the lower right-hand corner of the button arrangement - - namely the pound button). Then the operator comes back on and says, "Message has been erased. Please begin recording your message after the tone".

Continuity: When they're having his retirement dinner and his friend makes his 'this all doesn't mean shit' speech, the food on Jack Nicholson's plate decreases without him eating it, then increases without any evidence of anyone serving him more.

Continuity: At the end of the movie Warren receives a painting by his foster child Ndugu, which shows him holding Ndugu's hand. In the two close-ups that show the painting there are some differences: e.g. the bellies are filled with more or less color, or Warren's mouth is drawn first quite crooked, then with a straight smile.

Continuity: While Warren is watching the program about Childreach the items on the little table next to his chair change: the cover of the paperback that is lying face down is first curved up, then flat, and another book that looks like Reader's Digest suddenly appears behind the phone.

Audio problem: When Schmidt's wife is chopping food on a cutting board, the sound of the chopping doesn't match the action.

Continuity: When Warren finds his wife dead on the floor the position of the vacuum cleaner changes between shots: The nozzle is first lying on the side of the carpet, then on the fringes.

Continuity: When Warren calls Jeannie from a gas station to announce his arrival, there is one shot at the end of the scene where we see a close-up of Warren on the phone with the rear of his mobile home relatively close in the background. To get this perspective the mobile home must have been moved back from its previous position.

Continuity: After Warren arrives at Roberta's they sit in the living room and drink. She gets up to deal with her ex-husband in the kitchen. Then she returns and picks up her drink before she sits down, and when she is sitting she picks it up again.

Factual error: In the deleted scenes section of the DVD, Warren lets himself out of the back of a police car when he's being dropped off back at the supermarket after his shoplifting arrest. Most police cars are modified so that the backseat doors must be opened from the outside.

Continuity: When Warren is eating the lunch served to him by Jeannie the clear vase (or caraffe?) behind him on the table with the flowers disappears when Warren says "You know best, you and your mother", to return in the next shot.

Continuity: When Jack Nicholson is eating a sandwich in the dining room with his daughter, the food on the plate changes constantly. One sandwich half changes direction, the pile of potato chips changes, the pickle slice changes thicknesses, and, after he takes a bite, there are two halves (one bitten into) and a third chunk, as if he had torn off a piece. But he never tears a piece off.

Continuity: When Warren sits on the roof of his mobile home and talks to his wife up in heaven, he has built a little altar out of the four Hummel figures he had bought, and three candles. When he drives off the position of all items is just the same, except that there are now only two candles.

Continuity: When Warren receives a letter from his foster child Ndugu the letter is addressed '5402 Farnam Street', whereas the number on the curb says '5042' (at 01:52:20 - may change back to 5402 at another point).

Continuity: Schmidt comes back to his office the day after the retirement party to see his successor. While they are talking the pen lying on the desk in front of his successor keeps on changing positions.

Continuity: In the wedding scene, Randall's boutonniere starts out as a closed off-white rosebud with arranged foliage. By the time he is reading his "and I mean every DAY" prose to Jeannie, the rose has changed color to peach, has opened, and the foliage is arranged completely differently.

Continuity: When Roberta spoon-feeds Warren with soup the position of the napkin keeps changing with almost every shot.

Continuity: On the morning after his retirement party Warren is sitting at his desk doing a newspaper puzzle, holding his pencil at the tip. In a close-up of the writing the pencil it is held much higher (that we can see better what he is writing, I guess). Secondly, there is now another piece of paper lying under the newspaper which wasn't there in the wide shot.