Matilda

Matilda (1996)

49 mistakes - chronological order

(29 votes)

Continuity mistake: When Trunchbull teaches the class for the first time, the clock above the chalkboard reads 10 minutes to the hour. After approx. four minutes of filming, the clock now reads 10 minutes after the hour. There is no chance that the scene, depicting a single continuous event, would have taken 20 minutes.

Goldie97

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Miss Trunchbull charges Lavender, she has two boots on. She misses Lavender and falls through the door. The next shot of her, she only wears one boot. There was no time between shots that she could have lost the one boot and boots wouldn't just 'slip off' as she went through the door.

Continuity mistake: Matilda's eye colour changes from green to blue to brown to green again throughout the different ages in the film.

Continuity mistake: When Miss Trunchbull is talking to Amanda Thripp in the school yard, watch Amanda's left pigtail. When she says, "You mean my pigtails?" Amanda pulls her left pigtail over her shoulder so it is in front of her shoulder. However, in the next shot the pigtail is behind her shoulder and in the following shot, it is in front again.

Character mistake: When Harry takes the kids to his business, he's showing them how he "restores" cars. After putting the bumper on, Harry says, "Transmission. The sawdust quietens the gears and let's the engine run as sweet as a nut." Putting sawdust into the transmission would not change how the engine runs as they are two separate components. It may make the transmission quieter but would have zero effect on the engine.

Continuity mistake: When Matilda's family is speaking out numbers and summing them up, the mum places a can of beer on the table that moves around between shots.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: On Matilda's first day of school she gets off the car wearing a sweater and holding a notebook but them is shown just wearing her blue dress.

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

Suggested correction: Well, there was a pole attached to the bottom of the pitcher, which was used to make it levitate, and it was edited out in post. But there is no visible shadow of the pole in any of the shots.

zenee

Matilda mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Zinnia removes the hat from Harry's head after Matilda glued it, in one shot the hat is almost removed from the forehead but in the next shot the hat is still on it.

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Trivia: The two actors who play Matilda's parents, Harry and Zinnia Wormwood, are Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito. They are actually husband and wife and have been married since 1982 and have 3 children.

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Answer: The "real world" answer is that it's a movie, and without Trunchbull, there's no villain at the school for Matilda to battle. Within the context of the film, everyone, including the staff, is afraid of her and fear if they speak up, she'll retaliate.

Answer: They would have been simply too afraid of the Trunchbull to report her.

Answer: Some of the staff also appear to be on her side, as we see the lunch lady appears to hate kids too. I always found it interesting that when she is scared away at the end, we don't appear to see any other teacher cheering her away except for Miss Honey. There may have been other teachers who had a "beat them and discipline them" idea just like hers.

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