Corrected entry: When Katherine is sitting at her desk in the villa in one scene, the kitten is on a book in front of her. In the next shot from beside the desk, the kitten is gone. Instant disappearing cat.
Correction: No there is no kitten on that book.
Corrected entry: Marcelo names the little girl asking for ice cream as his nephew which is incorrect. A nephew would be a boy. The correct word would be niece.
Correction: Frances is amused when he says nephew instead of niece, but she doesn't seem to want to correct him and lets it go.
Corrected entry: According to local law, when the external parts of "a 300 year old house" are restored, a special permission is needed, and not always conceded. So, even if the authorities agreed to do the "Polonia" writing, Frances, being the owner, should have asked for a permission, and it couldn't have been a surprise.
Correction: This mistake is not legitimate. This actually happened for the real-life Frances Mayes. Her Polish crew really did leave a mark of "Polonia" for her on her house, so whoever called this an error was mistaken.
Corrected entry: This film uses a lot (maybe too many) Italian stereotypes, but they're all (the black-dressed old women, the jealous father, nice dressed men always trying with Frances) southern Italian ones. These are the most known Italian characters since most of the immigrant came from the south, but in this context, it's like placing a lot of cowboys in New York City.
Correction: I fail to see how using stereotypes is a movie mistake. Most movies have lots of them.
Corrected entry: At the end, there's a red Swiss train (the flag on the front of the train). It is supposed to be on the Semmering railway, but this railway is in Austria, not in Switzerland. (01:40:10)
Correction: It could be a Swiss train on an Austrian railway.
Corrected entry: When the real estate agent comes to the house after the storm, he is in the room and is lighting a fire in the fireplace. You see him strike a match on the matchbox, put the match ON (this would never work) the wood. When the shot turns back to the agent, 2.6 seconds later, the fire is ablaze. Not only could this never happen, but when the shot returns (after being away for a minuscule time period) back to the fire, it is now in full blaze. So in a period of about 7 seconds, the fire has gone from a match to a roaring blaze. Impossible...
Correction: He's obviously using an accelerant, some kind of solvent would do nicely. That would produce exactly the effects seen.
Corrected entry: When the real estate agent is negotiating the price of the villa with the other couple, the contessa increases the price in liras. Italy replaced the lira with the euro about three years ago. The contessa, being older, probably still thinks in lira, but there is no way the other couple nor Diane Lane would be able to pay in lira. The real estate agent would have quoted a euro equivalent.
Correction: The movie does not necessarily takes place after Jan. 2002. It is based on real events that happened probably prior to 2002. On the other hand, the euro transition is very recent. People that have lived with liras, pesetas, marks, etc. still think in their currencies, and in business dealing still tend to speak of national currency amounts, and then when the quotation is presented formally in paper, the euro equivalent is provided.
Correction: That is not true. The cat is still on top of the book, only it's lying down now so you probably missed it. In the last shot before Frances turns around the cat is just about to lie down.