Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

White Palace
Directed by Luis Mandoski
Third Coast Entertainment, Ltd. 1990 DVD/VHS Feature Film
R

This is a rousing screen version of Glenn Savan's 1987 novel about the surprising relationship between an upwardly mobile, 27-year-old advertising executive and a 43-year-old waitress who works at a hamburger joint. What begins as a drunken seduction moves on to sexual obsession for both parties. Susan Sarandon gives a top drawer performance as Nora, a boozy redneck survivor whose heroine is none other than the self destructive Marilyn Monroe. James Spader is perfectly cast as Max Baron, a compulsively neat and sexually repressed widower who is brought back to the land of the living by Nora's erotic ministrations. Eileen Brennan does wonders with the minor role of Noras' sister, a fortune-teller. Luis Mandoski's (Gaby — A True Story) direction of White Palace makes it into a convincing psychodrama about the redemptive power of love which can even overcome deep-seated class differences.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat