White Palace

White Palace (1990) is an American romantic drama you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Luis Mandoki, the film pairs a grieving twenty-seven-year-old ad executive with a working-class waitress sixteen years his senior. James Spader and Susan Sarandon lead.

Max is still numb from losing his young wife when he stumbles into Nora. She works a diner in a rough part of St. Louis, drinks what she wants, and makes no apologies for it. The pull between them is real and immediate. The complication comes later — Max's Jewish social circle has expectations, and Nora is about as far from those expectations as a person can get. Kathy Bates and Jason Alexander round out the supporting cast.

In 1990, Hollywood rarely wrote roles like this for women over forty. Sarandon took it and made it the kind of performance that lingers. Stream White Palace (1990) online on iFILM.