I love James Spader & Susan Sarandon, but was disappointed by White Palace. Basically filmmakers wanted an excuse to have Sex, Lies & Videotape’s James Spader meet Bull Durham’s Susan Sarandon. Felt more like a lust than a love story, which would have been fine if the ending didn’t reduce the lust aspect to a milquetoast, trite & safer denouement. I thought James Spader was miscast because the movie stresses the numerous reasons why they won’t make a good couple: age, socioeconomic, hygiene & cultural backgrounds, but James Spader seemed as dissonant with his character’s cultural background as Susan Sarandon’s character so not quite believable. The movie does come to life when Eileen Brennan interacts with the two, but the rest of the film seems more like caricatures (particularly in its portrayal of Spader’s character’s family & friends) of what Hollywood imagined would happen when the characters’ other lives clashed. Also ultimately pulled punches on the deaths that affected their lives.