Movie Characters Way Too Poor To Realistically Afford Their Lifestyles

One of the main talking points viewers came away with from La La Land was how Emma Stone’s character, Mia, could afford to drive around in a Toyota Prius. The cars retail at between $25,000 and $30,000 at a minimum and the aspiring actress works as a barista at the start of the movie. The average salary for café workers is just $19,450, meaning Mia would face financial difficulties to pay for the car. That’s not to mention the huge LA apartment she lives in with her friends that definitely runs on the more expensive side. 

The movie adaptation of Sleeping with the Enemy made some notable deviations from the novel, most notably with the financial situation of the protagonist Laura. After escaping from her abusive husband with just a small amount of money, she manages to rent a rather large house and carry out renovations despite the fact she previously worked only part-time as a librarian. Furthermore, she also shells out for her mother’s care at a nursing home on what little salary she gets from her new job. Even in Iowa during the '90s, it still seems farfetched to believe she can afford her expenses with the tiny income she apparently has.

Lois Lane’s penthouse apartment in Superman is not only a large, lavishly decorated home, it also sports a balcony terrace for the hero to fly through. But one doesn't require X-ray vision to see through the fact that Lane should never have been able to afford the apartment. Working as a reporter for the local newspaper probably earned Lane a lower wage, certainly no larger than the equivalent salary of today’s journalists. Although the movie takes place in Metropolis, mere studio apartments in the building where it was actually filmed rent for several thousand dollars a month, putting them easily out of her price range.

The premise of Her sees protagonist Theodore Twombly working a rather menial job writing lover letters for those who aren’t creative or romantic enough to do it themselves. While touching, this is unlikely to be a high paying gig. It isn’t exactly the most arduous job for a writer, and work of this nature is increasingly being outsourced to places like India, where companies pay people a few cents for hundreds of words.

Yet Twombly lives in a swanky downtown apartment filled to the brim with the latest gadgets and technology. He’s even able to take vacations whenever he wants in addition to keeping up payments of his spacious home. When you think about it, Twombly falling for a machine hardly feels like the most outrageous aspect of the film.

Dana Barrett, the first customer of the crew in Ghostbusters, lived in a rather exclusive Manhattan penthouse during the events of the film. The movie also makes clear that she worked as a professional cellist at the time. Even accounting for the disparity in pay between orchestras in the United States and the rest of the world, she likely only earned around $80,000-a-year at the time the film was set. That’s nowhere near enough to afford an apartment that was likely to cost several million dollars, especially when you consider that she lives alone. Of course, an apartment with a portal to the World of the Dead may sport other features that keep it at supernaturally low prices.

Seth Rogan’s character in Knocked Up is Ben Stone, a weed-smoking low baller with low self-esteem. He doesn’t work and spends most of his time hanging out with his friends smoking pot. Though he works no job and boasts few skills, he lives in relative comfort, in a large home where he consumes plenty of drugs

This is apparently all possible due to a lawsuit settlement he won years before the film takes place. With that knowledge in hand, you'd think it must be a massive settlement. But that too fails to make sense considering Stone cannot even afford a wedding ring later in the movie, suggesting his finances are not in good shape.