The End of the Affair

Continuity mistake: When Parkis the detective comes to give his first report Maurice is shaving. The shaving cream on Maurice's face keeps appearing and disappearing throughout the scene, most obviously when he looks aroud the corner. (00:23:40)

NancyFelix

Plot hole: When Henry rings Maurice's doorbell to give the bad news about Sarah's fatal illness, Maurice and Sarah are upstairs in the bedroom. Maurice approaches the window and looks down while we see Henry looking up in his direction. That he walks away without trying to make contact makes no sense. (01:13:45)

NancyFelix

Factual error: Just as Ralph Fiennes is getting out of a car to run across the road you can see, just as he steps out, road markings that were not around in the mid forties and that weren't on the road in a shot just previous when you could see the road behind Fiennes in the car window. (01:09:05)

omegaman3000

Continuity mistake: When Maurice and Henry sit on the bench after the bar scene there's light on the left side of Maurice's face when we see them from the front, but no light at all when we see them from the side. (00:43:15)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Maurice and Sarah are in the restaurant, he imagines her leaving and going after her. Her hair was straight with a bob at the end, but when she went outside, her hair was in curls.

Continuity mistake: When Ralph Fiennes is with Julianne Moore's husband at the bar informing him about the priest he is shown drinking the whole glass of whisky but when he puts the glass down there's still some whisky in it. (00:42:20)

Continuity mistake: When the bombing scene is shown the first time Maurice breaks through the railing of the landing between the first floor, where he and Sarah were, and the ground floor. When Sarah tells her story and the bombing scene is replayed, we see her running down one full flight with an intact railing. She keeps running down and then comes to the spot where Maurice is lying on the steps. That means the second time there is one flight too many. (00:55:45)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, when Maurice and Henry meet after two years, rain comes pouring down. They go to Henry's house, and when they enter the hallway Maurice's formerly drenched coat is dry. (00:03:50)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: In the last scene of the movie, after Sarah's cremation, Parkis's boy Lance walks up to Maurice. Then he puts his hands in his pockets (we can't see the hands but it's clear from the way he moves his arms), but when the camera angle changes his arms are hanging down. (01:33:35)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When the bomb explodes next to Maurice's place he gets blown off the landing of the staircase. The way he 'takes off' he would have fallen on the ground, and there's no way that he would have landed as Sarah finds him, on the stairs and with his head pointing upwards. (00:46:10)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: After the bomb blast, when Sarah is about to leave, the blood on Maurice's left temple changes shape and size. (00:50:25)

NancyFelix

Factual error: In the wartime scene where the debris cloud from V1 bomb climbs into the sky, an AEC Routemaster "London Double-Decker" bus is to be seen in the background. In reality, the AEC Routemaster was introduced to service in 1956. (00:46:40)

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.