As you know, during this pandemic, I've enjoyed watching TV and movies that might have otherwise remained under the rubble of my entertainment to-do list. And I'd always wanted to watch Amazon Prime's 2015 limited series Z: The Beginning of Everything. But back in 2015, I hadn't yet figured out how to stream Amazon on my TV. Oh, pandemic, how much you have taught us!
Most people know that F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald had a tempestuous relationship. But it's a hiccup of a historical note often obscured by the glamour of Jazz Age glitter. Z: The Beginning of Everything tells a different tale, showing Scott not to be the love of Zelda's life but the reason her life was ruined.
Zelda Sayre (Christina Ricci) is the high-spirited, sought-after southern belle daughter of a respected Montgomery judge. Spoiled and mischievous, she can have any man -- and dress -- she wants but is bored by a world that's become claustrophobically provincial. So when dashing F. Scott Fitzgerald rides into town with nothing to do but wait to be deployed (it's World War I time), she's ripe for the picking. From New York City by way of Minnesota, Scott is an aspiring writer and possesses a savoir faire and intellectualism that Zelda finds refreshing. Her father is less enthusiastic, and her mother thinks that she should marry the kind and rich, if vapid, John Sellers. Yet smitten or not, Zelda tells Scott that she won't marry him until he publishes his first novel. The war is soon over, and Scott gets to work only to have his book rejected. It's only after he rewrites it with passages stolen from Zelda's letters that This Side of Paradise comes into being and hijacks the zeitgeist.
Zelda and Scott say their I dos in the back of a New York City church that might as well be city hall. Afterwards, Scott sweeps Zelda off to a raucous party where it's clear that she's an afterthought. In the days that follow, Scott and his literati set, which includes Edna St. Vincent Millay and Tallulah Bankhead, haze Zelda, criticizing her southern penchant for ruffles. In the shadow of this sophisticated and self-satisfied circle, the formerly feisty Montgomery maven becomes equal parts attitude and fragility, her big city dreams smoked to cinders.
The turning point comes when Scott buys Zelda an exorbitantly expensive and matronly black suit. When Zelda wears it, she gets so angry that she chops her hair and buys the spangly dress that she originally wanted, emerging in yet another incarnation, this time as the first flapper. Zelda's new look, combined with her innate charm and intelligence, lands her her own artistic opportunities. But Scott squashes them all, insisting that he needs Zelda to be his full-time muse. Yet it takes more than a muse to inspire this cruel, lazy, and alcoholic party animal predator to just sit down and write already. Watching his trainwreck behavior, I couldn't help but wonder how he managed to write a single sentence.
Z: The Beginning of Everything is the rare story that shows the dark side of star-crossed young love. It doesn't dress it up in romantic ribbons, insisting that the rougher the road, the more profound the connection. Instead, it suggests that Zelda would've been happier if she'd married John Sellers back home in Montgomery, or maybe even no one at all. Although the series ends when the Fitzgeralds' marriage is still in its infancy, its haunting final episode sets the stage for the heartbreak -- and breakdown -- that we know to be Zelda's destiny. To say that it's sad is an understatement.
We'll never know how much of Z: The Beginning of Everything is fact and how much is fiction. But either way, one question remains:
Why do so many men in American history turn out to be such assholes?
Maybe someone should write a book about that.