I just saw this for the first time and I must have missed something. Sara lives in NYC when they first meet, but at some point moves to SF?? I know she said she was going to drop the book off at a used bookstore by her house, but when we see her later, she is in SF. Thanks!
shareShe was living in New York for a time and then moved to the Bay area. Time goes on, people change, people move on with life despite any ties to the city. As the movie says, a few years had passed since the beginning of the movie to the body of the movie and moves back to New York at the end. That's all. Nothing complicated except for the characters.
shareYes but the problem is that Sara wrote her name and phone number in the book whilst she was living in New York. And yet when the book finally came into Jonathan's possession years later, his friend Dean managed to trace this phone number (with no area code, please note) to an address in San Francisco. How on EARTH would that be possible?
Furthermore, Sara was living in the same apartment as the French guy (Mr Minnion) at the time she wrote the phone number in the book. Therefore, the same phone number would likely have been on her old account details at the Bloomingdales store since she used her Bloomingdales charge card to buy the gloves with on the day that she first met Jonathan.
It's just incredibly sloppy scriptwriting.
I don't see what the problem is. They didn't need an area code because they knew that, at the time she wrote her number in the book, she lived in New York, and therefore there would only be a limited number of area codes to have to search through.
With a name and an old phone number, it's relatively easy to track down someone's subsequent locations, if you know how to look. And one would assume that the New York Times, which would have a reason to find individuals, would have the ability to use personal information like this to track people down.
Yes, but the phone number led them to her address in San Francisco, not to an address in New York. The number written in the book would have been where she was sharing the apartment with the French guy in New York. They had already spoken with the French guy, who had moved himself by that time, and not even he knew where she was now, so it is extremely unlikely that they could have located her, especially so quickly. Whilst newspapers keep phone directory records (as long as the number is listed) to aid them in their work, the New York Times is not the FBI. Basically, we see Jonathan and Dean in the cab and Dean phones his office to trace a phone number with no area code. The next thing we see, they're on the flight to Frisco. Furthermore, even if they had managed to trace her Frisco address, you would think they would have been able to find the phone number to it as well. Don't you think they would have called her first to see if it was the right address rather than just hop straight on a plane for a six hour flight?
It was all too contrived, even for a film. The writer probably thought he could get away with just fudging it because its just a rom-com and people are less likely to think about details too much. Wrong....
Yup, I was thinking the same thing; when they got Sara's phone # and address, why not phone her to make sure she's home? Consider the risk of missing your wedding the next day, to fly to SF on a whim? And the expense...check the price on 1st class airfare with less than 14 days notice! This falls under the category of stuff that just wouldn't happen.
shareit's a movie. enough said. it's not like --boom-- they have the name and number and suddenly they're flying to san fran... there are steps in between they gloss over, obviously. It seems a little silly to get hung up on stupid details about a movie based on fate and destiny, it's all fairy tales! The whole movie they're one step behind each other, literally sometimes missing each other by a few seconds! And at the end after they've given up hope, they just somehow end up at the same spot, recognize one another and don't seem surprised? It's all pretty ludicrous. Not to mention the chances of her finding that $5 bill... that's much more outlandish that tracking someone down from an old phone number!
shareit's an internet message forum. Enough said. Part of the fun is to pick apart the often gaping holes in movies.
shareXliving..., it,s just so much fun to talk about this stuff with total strangers!
shareI worked at radio stations where we had what were called "reverse directories" or "cris-cross directories", that is, you could look up an address and get a name & number, or look up a number and get a name and address, etc. We had them going back 10 years or so, principally because we just didn't clean them out. I'd assume the NYT would have more than the current year as well.
Although they found "the French guy", remember he said that Sara lived there "with her boyfriend", so presumably they could find "the boyfriend" as well, particularly if they shared the phone number. (Of course I'm glossing over the idea that "Sara Thomas" is a frightfully common name; there would probably have been 20 of them in New York. But it's a movie, we're not supposed to get hung up on arcane details.)
Anyway, they call the old boyfriend, who says "Oh yeah, I heard she moved to San Francisco." Now the NYT looks up Sara Thomas in San Fran and finds a listing for a psychologist, and/or a home number, and/or a news story or two that says she's the girlfriend of this famous musician. Voila! Plane ticket to the coast.
(Then again, as another thread points out, it would be impossible to leave NY for SF that late at night, land, drive anywhere, and return on the red-eye in time for the presumed wedding, but why get hung up on stuff? If you over analyze anything you will never enjoy any movie anywhere. Does anybody really think there are Na'vi, or that Michael Corleone really had his brother offed?)
I think the key is the phone number EVENTUALLY led them to her address in San Francisco. Yes, it is possible to track people down using a 10 year old phone number, and you don't have to be the FBI to do it. Bill collectors do it. Skip tracers do it. Yes, the FBI does it. And so do reporters from time to time. I've done it myself (never from NY to SF, but from one state to another. I used to be a reporter. It's not that hard. Get the first address, go to a criss-cross directory, call a neighbor or two, tell them you're Mary Jones long lost cousin, where did she move to, before you know it, you know it.)
Movies have to leave out some intermediate steps, otherwise we'd be in the theater for 2 months instead of 2 hours.
Miffed One
I watched this movie and to tell the truth, no matter what the fim says, the whole movie takes place over the course of a month or so, Sorry.
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