White Palace is a 1990 American erotic romantic drama film directed by Luis Mandoki. It stars Susan Sarandon, James Spader, Jason Alexander, Kathy Bates, Steven Hill, Jeremy Piven, and Renée Taylor. It was written by Ted Tally and Alvin Sargent, based on the 1987 novel by Glenn Savan (who appears in the film as an extra with a small speaking part).
It centers on the unlikely relationship between a young upper middle class widower (Spader) who falls in love with a middle-aged working class waitress (Sarandon) in St. Louis, Missouri. The original music score was composed by George Fenton. The film is marketed with the tagline "The story of a younger man and a bolder woman".
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Plot
Twenty-seven-year-old St. Louis advertising executive Max Baron has shut himself off from the world in the two years since the auto accident that killed his wife Janey. En route to his friend Neil's bachelor party, Max picks up fifty burgers from a diner called White Palace. At the party, he discovers that the order is six burgers short and, to the ridicule of his friends, returns to the restaurant to complain.
At the White Palace diner, after a dispute occurs between Max and a forty-three-year-old waitress, Nora Baker, she refunds him. Max returns to the party but leaves upset, heads to a bar and runs into Nora. Drunk, she flirts with him, but he pushes her advances away and starts to leave. She senses that he is upset, asks why, and discovers his wife's death. She discloses that her young son died of leukemia. The 'connection' prevents him from leaving. They have some drinks and eventually he gives her a lift home to the Dogtown neighborhood in St. Louis, but drunkenly crashes his car into her mailbox. She invites him to spend the night at her house, with the couch as his bed. Max starts dreaming about his late wife, then wakes up to find Nora performing fellatio on him. They end up having passionate sex.
