Has anyone noticed that when Alice leaves Socorro, NM (south of Albuquerque) to go west towards Monterey, CA that she first stops in Phoenix, AZ and then goes SE to Tucson, AZ. Why would she be going away from CA? Did someone not know their directions?
Verisimilitude is exuberant in my conception. Indulge me by not amalgamating yours with mine.
I just saw this movie for the first time and that really stood out to me. I'm surprised you're the only one to mention it and surprised it's not in the Goofs section. (Would it be continuity or plot hole?)
shareThe leg to Phoenix isn't that unusual. U.S. 60 connects Socorro to Phoenix. I believe Tucson was just the nearest large city where Alice could go to escape from Ben.
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Drake
FYI
When travelling from Socorro to Phoenix, she is shown travelling on a large four-lane divided highway, and US 60 ("the back road to Arizona," as I like to call it) is nothing like that. She's obviously on an Interstate, so I presume she takes I-25 north to Albuquerque, where I live, and then I-70 to Flagstaff, turning south to Phoenix at that point.
If she'd stayed on I-70, and wanted to stay on well-travelled roads-- probably a good idea for a woman travelling with a child and no other adult-- she's going to have to go way out of her way at some point, either to the north or to the south. There is no major highway through east central California that's going to take her directly to the San Francisco Bay area. She needs money, and there's only one possibly better city in the inland southwest to try to find a singing job, i.e. Las Vegas. Perhaps she decided she just didn't have enough money to make it to Las Vegas, or maybe she thinks that in Las Vegas the competition for singing jobs would be a lot more intense.
Anyway, at the beginning of her journey she's not putting a lot of thought into charting a long-range path beyond "get to Monterey somehow." She gives Tommy a lot of flak for all his "what if, oh Mom what if" kinds of worries. She's resisting giving in to her own anxieties, which could overwhelm her if she did.
"I don't deduce, I observe."
"I don't deduce, I observe."Did you observe the road sign early in the trip that said "U.S. 60?" Yes, most of the way it's a two-lane road. But, hey some of those aerial shots of Socorro were actually Tucson! How many movie scenes have you seen that were actually shot where they purported to be?
I just went back and looked for it, and the road sign (which flashes by for about a second, literally, and is easy to overlook) isn't really in the beginning of the trip, it's in the latter part of the trip, after they've crossed into Arizona.
The editing is geographically challenged in several ways, no doubt because almost nothing of this movie was actually filmed in New Mexico:
--If they do indeed take "the back road to Arizona," then the earlier scenes of Alice travelling a four-lane divided highway don't belong there. Not much of US 60 is four-lane divided, only a few short stretches just outside of some of the larger small towns, and that's only in Arizona. Well, the fact that you see the road sign on the Arizona side is okay, but the New Mexico side is then impossible, because between Socorro and the Arizona border there's not a single mile of four-lane divided highway, and never has been.
(That's why I prefer "the back road" to/from Albuquerque/Phoenix or Tucson, when I can afford the time, 'cause though it's at least half an hour longer than either of the all-interstate highway routes, it's not heavily travelled, and far less stressful. I really don't care for travelling the interstates, if there's a more relaxed route. I even prefer to go through the mountains just to get to Santa Fe.)
-- Secondly, when you see the "Now Leaving New Mexico, Land of Enchantment" sign, Alice and Tommy are right in the middle of a small town that straddles the state border. Now, I have no idea what town you see here, but it sure isn't a town on US 60, because when US 60 crosses from New Mexico to Arizona (or vice versa) there's nothing but open country there. There's a good chance the town isn't even on the New Mexico-Arizona border, but New Mexico-Texas instead.
"I don't deduce, I observe."
real simple explanation. She needed a job to make money. She didn't have enough to go str8 to Monterey. Finding a job in a larger city makes sense. No?
shareI noticed that, and also that shortly after passing the "Leaving New Mexico" sign, Tommy asked if they were in Arizona yet...so did they drive to Texas before turning around and going to Arizona?
maybe Alice didn't have a map