How long was Sabrina in Paris?

Question

In the 1995 film Sabrina, Sabrina Fairchild moves to Paris where she matures and "finds herself".

The scenes showing her in Paris show time passing as she discovers new things while becoming mature and sophisticated. It also shows what progresses the other people in her life are making back home in New York.

While dancing with David, he comments on how long it has been since he has seen her:

I haven't seen you in years. I'm not sure I ever saw you.

I'm not sure what to make of this line from David. I don't know if he actually meant that Sabrina was literally gone for years or that he just didn't notice how long she was gone because he never noticed her before she left.

Is it ever mentioned how long Sabrina was in Paris?

Answer 1

The film's official novelisation indicates that she was in Paris for about a year, from the age of twenty to beyond her twenty-first birthday.

Not very much, considering he’d known the girl all his life. She’d always been a cute little thing who would smile shyly whenever she’d happened to cross his Path. He [Linus] doubted whether they’d had more than a hundred words of conversation. He mentally listed the facts he had at hand:

1.) She was the chauffeur’s daughter.
2.) She’d spent the last year in Paris (doing what or why, he couldn’t remember).
3.) She’d grown up quite a bit in Paris, so much so that “cute” was no longer an appropriate adjective with which to describe her. (Sophisticated, lovely, charming . . . any one of those would now apply more readily than cute.)

Note that Linus is pretty clueless and barely recalls her, so he could easily be wrong.

Answer 2

Before she leaves, her father says "Your year in Paris will be so good for you".

So it follows that she was there for 1 year.

Answer 3

The previous answer is wrong. The comment that her father made was "Your time in Paris will be so good for you", not "your year in Paris". In the original 1954 movie, Sabrina went to a two-year cooking school instead of an internship as a photographer. I believe we are to assume the same amount of time in Paris for the internship.

Answer 4

According to the storyline in the IMDB page, Sabrina spends 2 years in France with the staff of the Vogue Magazine.