Factual error: At the beginning of the move Lars' family is watching Abba performing Waterloo, live. The day is, as the caption shows, April 6th, 1974. The first time Eurovision was broadcasted live in Iceland was in 1983. (00:00:10)
Character mistake: When the camera pans to the frame containing the picture of Lars with his departed mother, the caption says "In memory of our beloved mother Mirra Gunnarsdottir", with a plain O. On the cross, her name is Mirra Gunnarsdóttir. It's two different letters, and it'd be pretty strange to honor the memory of your mother printing a photo with her name in the wrong form. (00:01:10)
Continuity mistake: Abba is about to perform "Waterloo" and one of the women hushes the others spreading her arms. Most beer bottles in that particular shot have gotten their cap back on. (00:01:20)
Continuity mistake: During Abba's performance, the toy young Lars is playing with changes position between shots. Specifically, when the song says "At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender", the wooden tile laid flat on the step is pointed towards the camera, and after the cut it moved 90°. (00:01:35)
Continuity mistake: When Will Ferrell and Pierce Brosnan have their conversation about the house in front of the tomb, the natural light changes very between shots (when Brosnan says "I make my money fishing" Ferrell's shoulder and face are fully lit by direct sunlight, gone at the next cut). (00:06:30)
Continuity mistake: Olaf drives away after chewing off the parking ticket. Lars sighs and concurs that his dad IS in fact ashamed of him. He has his hands in his pants, but when in the next shot Sigrit tells him it's not true, his hands are in the upper pockets of his jacket. (00:08:30)
Continuity mistake: Neils Brongus puts next to him in the conference room the DVD with Demi Lovato's performance. The DVD is placed in the first shot on top of the remote control, but already in the next shot it's off it, and it keeps bouncing between these two positions and different ones depending from the camera angles. (00:13:20)
Continuity mistake: During the exhibition of "21st Century Viking", one of the bar patrons calls the attention of the others; his hand changes position on the glass between shots, the guy with a shaved head and short black beard is holding his beer with his right hand instead of both, etc. (00:21:45)
Continuity mistake: When the flaming severed arm falls in front of Lars and Sigrit, its position is different between shots; it fell across the horizontal lines of the railing's shadow, but in close-up it's parallel to them, and when they kick it, it rolls over obviously different spots (easy to tell by the width of the shadow). (00:26:45)
Factual error: During the performance by Sweden there are 7 people on stage, meaning this entry would be disqualified due to the rules of the contest which state no more than 6 people are allowed on stage.
Factual error: During the voting in the first semi final Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom are listed on the scoreboard. All of these countries are, as members of Eurovision's "Big Five", automatically qualified for the finale so wouldn't compete in the semi final.
Factual error: During the semi finals of Eurovision there is no voting procedure like in the final with every single country presenting its jury vote. Instead, only the ten qualifiers for the final are named in a random order.
Factual error: The Eurovision venue supposedly in Edinburgh is the SSE Hydro, in Glasgow.
Continuity mistake: In the chase scene the American Mini swerves to miss an oncoming car. That car starts out grey then changes to a another green Mini, then back to the original car that came round the corner.
Factual error: Considering Sigrit and Lars are similar ages in the opening flashback to 1974, 41 year old Rachel McAdams should be a similar age to the 52 year old Will Ferrell, which she clearly isn't. Alternatively, if she's meant to be in her 50s, there's no way they'd have been able to have a baby together.
Suggested correction: Women *can* get pregnant, and have healthy babies, in their early 50s. There are more health risks, but it happens.
Suggested correction: Actors play older/younger characters all the time. The fact that you know their real age says nothing about the character's age. In real life, people often look older or younger (when I was in my mid - to late-30's, a lot of people wouldn't believe I was older than 25).
Considering that Sigrit is 4 or 5 years old in the 1974 flashback, she is 50 or 51 in her role in the main part of the movie. Not only is McAdams too young for the role, but also is Sigrits dream of founding a family and getting a baby quite unrealistic.
She's not too young for the role, which is the point of the correction. When I looked to see her age, I saw her pictures and guessed she was about 47 or 48, so she looks older than she really is. And there's a lot of 50+ year olds that look like they're in their 40's. Plus, the original mistake has nothing to do with a 50+ year old woman having a child.
Continuity mistake: Lars jumps into the summer water while wearing yellow pants, comes out wearing red, and is back in yellow pants on the flight back to Scotland.
Factual error: When the Americans are driving Lars to the contest, after spinning out, the driver puts the car in second gear (pulls the shifter back) instead of first and then speeds away from a standstill. Second gear would not sound like it did in the movie plus the acceleration would have been very weak, possibly stalling.
Factual error: A central point of the plot is Iceland not being able to host due to financial constraints. But the winning country is allowed to nominate another country to take on the hosting role if wanted.
Suggested correction: Italy has been absent from the Eurovision Song Contest for over a decade; the reason from multiple sources is reported to be the same stated here, even if not officially. Organizing the event is costly, very risky if production values are not up to standards and the return can be limited or negative - so you could say it happened in the past. It's a matter of internal politics, consider that executives may look at their own gain more than the big picture, and 'handing it over' to someone else makes someone in the business of organizing events (rather than winning them) lose face more than simply being one of the many who don't end up victorious.
