About Schmidt (2002) - 28 mistakes

Continuity: In the opening scene Warren is sitting at his desk, waiting for the clock to turn 5 pm. Depending on the camera angle the arrangement of items on his desk varies: the telephone, the mail basket, and the rolled-up cable are sometimes right at the edge, sometimes not, and also the way the cable is rolled up changes.

Continuity: At the beginning of the movie, when Warren is waiting for his last working day to be over, the ticking clock is shown in close-up, and it casts a strange shadow, as if it were lit right from below. In all wide shots there is no shadow at all.

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 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: When Warren wakes up on the morning of his first day of retirement there is a close-up of the clock on the bedside table turning 7:00. There are two coins in front and something like a round, green container behind, both of which are gone a moment later when he gets out of bed.

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.

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.

Continuity: When Warren comes to his old office to see his successor, the way his coat is folded over his arm changes between shots when he walks in.

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.

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 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 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 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 eats the sandwich made by Jeannie he is taking the glass of milk in his hand. When the camera angle changes he is seen rubbing his thumbs against his index fingers.

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 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.

Continuity: Warren finds Ray's love letters to his wife in a shoe box. The angle in which this box is placed on the box below is first rotated to the right, then to the left.

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: 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.

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".