Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The year this came out, I was a freshman in college and, at eighteen and not exactly "seasoned" in the cinematic viewing experience, had not too long before saw Pretty Woman and fell head-over-heels in love with Julia Roberts. I would've seen anything(and I mean ANYTHING) she was in back then. So when an acquaintance--really, a friend of a friend of mine living in the dorms--one night heard me glow over that movie, he scoffed at that and said that it wasn't as good as White Palace, which had just come out recently, in terms of the love scenes and scenarios involved.That stuck with me for a long time, LONG past my infatuation with Miss Roberts, and when I would years later, read another(sadly,I believe the last)novel from Glenn Savan, the author of the book for which White palace was adapted, I was so impressed with it that I decided that if I had a chance to catch White Palace, I would.Just recently, I ran across a copy at the local Video store, and while I probably SHOULD'VE bought it(it was going VERY cheap), I instead rented it and finally checked it out. While I cannot say I was overly impressed with the WHOLE package of the movie, I WAS taken by the chemistry between James Spader(as a numbed, still-grieving widower architect) and Susan Sarandon(as a Burger joint waitress/cashier whose blythe spirit veils an unhappy past of her own)and found the interpersonal dynamic of the two characters interesting. I cannot help but feel that there may've been layers to the novel and story that were truncated(and thus shorting potentially interesting story buttresses such as Jason Alexander as Spader's longtime and newly married pal and the keen, palmist sister of Sarandon's played by the late Eileen Brennan)in order to focus in on the meet, date, escalation, conflict and resolution of the romance/relationship between Max(Spader) and Nora(Sarandon).Overall, an appealing, sexy story that might lack the "zazz" of a Pretty Woman or Ghost(the two biggies of calendar year 1990), but a very worthy--if not superior--offering in regards to a romance movie. I feel like if I ever spoke to that gentleman again, I'd say that while White Palace ISN'T quite everything I might've wanted to see when I was eighteen, it was a much better "grown-up" movie. And I'd say it DOES compare favorably.

James Spader seemed to only play characters who behave in off-beat ways. I suppose that if everything was normal, then there wouldn't be anything to have a movie about, but he corners the the market on creepy obsession. Anyway, aside from that the film isn't particularly bad. And people do fall for spectacularly unsuitable matches all the time. When I first saw this film, I was closer to Max's twenty-seven than to Nora's forty-three, and I understood the characters in a different way than I did yesterday, when Nora is now a young woman to me. She loves Max, but makes no effort to fit in in his world. She is too angry about the class differences. It was/is the way of the world.

Who says love has to be a certain way? This movie doesn't. "White Palace" is a very moving and sexually energetic movie that shows you can be happy in your own way. Max(James Spader) is an executive in advertising who was brought down by the death of his wife. After a raucous bachelor party, he goes to a bar on the wrong side of town, and there he meets Nora(Susan Sarandon), a worker at White Palace, who refunded Max earlier, asks him what he's doing at this place. Both go home smashed, but as Max dreams of his wife, Nora makes her move on him. Man, she's 43, and he's a 27-year-old yuppie. The sex gets good there. Both of them feel alive, and the tension start to mount. His friends want him to be happy, but Max wants to be happy in his way. His friend at the bachelor party Neil(Jason Alexander), wants to set him up with some that had the hots for Max. He declined. His friend's wife will do anything to play matchmaker. Playing matchmaker will either bring happiness, or cause misery. Neil, his wife and all of Max's friends needed to learn one thing, is to mind their own businesses. Those folks need to stop running people's lives. If it haven't been Nora's sister Judy(Eileen Brennan), those two wouldn't been any happier. I enjoyed this movie very well, it was close to "A Tiger's Tale", only more intense. Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars!

I love James Spader - that's why I sat through this movie - not once (years ago), but twice (very recently). Sure, he's gotten sort of doughy in recent years, and is now in that awful TV show, but in this movie he is just so damn appealing: the most expressive eyes, those succulent lips. Yum! Susan Sarandon, OTOH, is way overrated as both an actress and a sex symbol. First, she's not at all attractive physically. The big, baggy bug eyes bothered me most. I found her character repulsive, crude, pathetic and incredibly annoying. Her crackling laugh in the bar scene made me *so* want to smack her. Her desperate "trapping" of him at the bar was painful to watch. How sad that she had to get him plastered and dupe him into coming home with her. Then, she just about rapes him. He resists, but later decides it'll take less energy to just let her have her way with him. He seems disgusted with her the morning after, and leaves callously, saying he won't be back - YET, we're to believe that within the next day he's become smitten with her and discovered he can't live without her? PLEASE!! Age is not the issue. She's crude, classless, unlikeable, a filthy slob, a drunk and a disgusting chain-smoker, yet this handsome, wealthy,young, successful, opera-loving, and impeccably neat "catch" falls hopelessly in love with her. ABSURD!!! It James Spader weren't in it, this movie would have gotten a -10!