Sweet Home Alabama

Revealing mistake: When Jake is driving Andrew to Melanie at the battlesite, Jake is driving with the truck in the park position. (01:11:00)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Or it's a manual 3 speed on the column in 2nd gear while driving slowly through town.

Sweet Home Alabama mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: As Melanie is walking across the battlefield looking for her father she steps across 'dead bodies'. You can see tucked into the top of her left boot the battery pack for her microphone and the wires going up her skirt. (01:08:15)

Revealing mistake: When Reese is leaving the dog cemetery, she brushes against one of the tombstones that has a stone dog on the top of it, yet as she walks past the dog begins to rock back and forth - clearly this is not a stone headstone. Pet cemeteries, just like human, have sturdy stone headstones to withstand the elements, not plastic. (01:06:40)

Factual error: At Tiffany's, just before Andrew proposes, Melanie says Christmas is "four months away," making it August. She immediately heads down to Alabama to finalize the divorce and tell her parents she's engaged, but she and the townspeople are wearing warm clothes, including a long-sleeved black turtleneck and tall boots for her, and mid-weight jackets for the guys. They'd die of heat stroke wearing those articles in August in Alabama. (00:08:00 - 00:13:50)

Sweet Home Alabama mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the end of the movie, when Melanie is on the beach with Jake and she goes to kiss him she has her hands on his face, but in the next shot her arms are stretched out and she wraps them around his neck. (01:36:20)

Continuity mistake: When Reese Witherspoon is walking down the main street after the street party almost all the lights have been put out, yet the next shot as she is walking into the cemetery you can see the street behind her and it is lit up again. (01:01:35)

Plot hole: When Melanie goes to meet Jake at the beach, it is pouring rain. Her hair is soaked and her dress is wet and muddy at the bottom. When they arrive at the wedding reception, her hair is much drier and her dress is perfectly dry and clean. (01:38:25 - 01:41:40)

Other mistake: Just after the start, Melanie is talking to her friend while driving to her hometown. Her friend is eating while talking, but at one point puts a perfectly clean fork with nothing on it into her mouth and acts like she is eating.

Audio problem: When Andrew's mother grabs Melanie's hand and realizes that Melanie has a ring, she say something to Andrew and at the same time Melanie says, "If it's all the same to you I would like to keep it..." Then his mom says, "You're Engaged?" Melanie is in the corner mouthing "quiet" but you don't hear it till the next shot. (00:12:40)

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Melanie's models are walking down the runway, the first model is wearing a dark blue suited dress with white -slightly large- buttons. The shot then goes backstage, and as the second model goes, the first model is behind her, waiting to go. (00:06:00)

Continuity mistake: When Jake and Melanie kiss on the beach at the end of the movie, she leans in to kiss him with her head tilted to the right. It then cuts to a different angle and she is tilting her head to the left. In the third and final shot, her head is tilted to the right again as they kiss. (01:36:20)

Continuity mistake: When Melanie and Jake are sitting at the dog cemetery, Melanie begins to cry. In one shot you can see tears running down her cheeks, in the next shot her face is dry. (01:04:05)

Visible crew/equipment: When Melanie pulls up to the Festival (right after the scene with the "reporter" from the Post at the Carmichael Plantation) you can see a cameraman on the right rear side of the car before he kneels down out of view and the audio microphone/boom in the shot being lifted away from the left side, up, and out.

Ben's Mom

Factual error: While it may be an artistic thing for the movie, fulgerite (lightning + sand) does not create anything near as ornate, long, crystal clear or tentacle like as portrayed in the movie. If anything it leaves tubular or clump like structures that are more reminiscent of kitty litter.

jerimiah

Factual error: If Melanie is still married to her first husband when she is about to wed her New York man, than she would not have been able to obtain a marriage license, as it would have shown up that she is already married when they applied for a license. Therefore, Mr. Buford would not have been running into the wedding to inform her she was still married to Jake. She should have already known.

Continuity mistake: In different scenes throughout the movie, the eyeshadow on Melanie's left eye keeps on disappearing, then reappearing.

Factual error: Melanie is walking up the aisle at her wedding in Alabama and her lawyer comes to tell her that she hasn't signed the divorce papers. The impression is given that she will sign them and then she can get married straight away. Alabama law states that you must wait 60 days following divorce before you can remarry. Melanie wouldn't have been able to get married even if she had signed the papers.

Snowysnowyowl

Revealing mistake: Just after Melanie busts into Jake's house for the first time, he grabs a beer out of the refrigerator and starts to chug it. But his throat muscles aren't moving to swallow anything. (00:17:15)

Continuity mistake: When Melanie is showing the nosey reporter around the Carmichael mansion, she peers through the kitchen door's porthole window and sees the top of the maid's head on the other side. She quickly steers the reporter in a different direction. The scene cuts to a shot of the maid inside the kitchen, only now she's much shorter and her head is about six inches below the window.

raywest

Continuity mistake: For some strange reason Melanie changes clothes prior to chasing Jake to the bar where he's on a date.

Rob245

Jake: The only reason I ain't signing is cause you've turned into some hoity-toity Yankee bitch, and I'd like nothing better right now than to piss you off.

More quotes from Sweet Home Alabama

Trivia: Erin Vanderbilt, the woman that Andrew is shown marrying at the end originally had a bigger part, but test audiences misunderstood her relationship with Andrew before breaking up with Melanie, so all of Erin's scenes were cut except for that small bit over the credits.

More trivia for Sweet Home Alabama

Question: At one point, Melanie mentions that Jake got her pregnant several years ago. Was the baby stillborn or did she get an abortion?

Answer: She had a miscarriage.

raywest

Answer: She says something to the effect of "mother nature had other plans" leading audience to believe she had a miscarriage.

Answer: She had an abortion because she said it would have altered her future plans and admitted to feeling so ashamed.

Melanie did not have an abortion. When she's talking to Jake's mother, Stella Kay, at the bar, it's mentioned that Melanie had a miscarriage. Melanie felt ashamed because after losing the baby, she ran out on Jake and their marriage to pursue her own goals in New York.

raywest

Doesn't Melanie say she's ashamed for being relieved about losing the baby?

Saying "losing" a baby indicates it was unexpected event and not a deliberate action. Melanie only means she was relieved her pregnancy didn't naturally continue.

raywest

More questions & answers from Sweet Home Alabama

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.