Corrected entry: In the scenes where the Ghost Writer is driving to Professor Emmett's house, the BMW's navigation system immediately begins providing the Ghost with audible directions. If the Ghost's predecessor travelled to Professor Emmett's and was killed at some point on his return, the BMW navigation system would not still be trying to guide a driver to that destination again. First off, the BMW navigation system resets once the destination is reached - it stops providing audible guidance. Second, even if it did not reset, there is no way that any driver would have put up with listening to the GPS guidance system trying to redirect him to Professor Emmett's during his entire return trip. Every 30 seconds the system would have been barking orders such as "Take the next exit" or "When possible, make a legal U-turn."
The Ghost Writer (2010)
1 corrected entry
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, James Belushi, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams
Factual error: When Ewan McGregor drives to Belmont MA to visit Paul Emmett, he checks the mailbox to see whose mail it's addressed to. It shows the name Paul Emmett, address, Belmont MA 02324, which is the wrong zip code; it is the zipcode for Bridgewater MA, and Belmont MA should be 02478.
Question: Was the ghostwriter murdered? Why? The book had already been published, and he only discovered the truth about Ruth minutes before, so who would have wanted him dead?
Answer: Who would want him dead? Ruth, for one, as well as Professor Emmett (her CIA recruiter) and others involved in the conspiracy. Yes, the book had been published, but the secret message only comes across if one is in possession of all the knowledge that the writer had acquired, which the casual reader would not have. And minutes is plenty of time for Ruth, Emmett, or anyone else to make a phone call and arrange the hit.
The published book was a rewrite and would not have the secret message in the chapter beginnings.
The published book was a rewrite of the original manuscript. He gives her the original manuscript that he was working off, not a final draft.
We know the beginning of the book was rewritten as he didn't like it. Almost certainly, the clue is not in the published version of the book. Ruth was shocked to read the note and is delivering her speech so is unlikely to be complicit in the murder of the Ghostwriter. The ending suggests that Ruth, too, is little more than a pawn in the whole conspiracy.
Makes no sense, he was run down 2 minutes after she read it.
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Correction: We never know if the first Ghost actually arrived to Prof Emmet. This was a repeated assumption from McGregor but never really confirmed. The fact that the navigation system was still set on this target destination inplies that he never reached target. Exactly as you say, it resets after the target is reached. If he was abducted from the ferry on his way out, the car was left empty and the abductors did not get any indication, since the engine was off, that the sat nav had a set target. The person driving the car from the ferry and back to the garage would have noticed, but if he was a novice as McGregor himself in the handling of sat navs ( he would of course not need to actualy follow the direction to be able to check the set target), he would not understand or care about the ongoing audial directions.
Airborne60