Zelda Sayre is a free-spirited and flamboyant 18-year-old woman living in Montgomery, Alabama, in the year 1918. Zelda wants a bigger and better life and she's on the look out for an escape route. Zelda's stern father, Anthony, tries to keep her flamboyance suppressed which only makes her challenge his authority. During an evening out at a going-away-dance for soldiers embarking to France to fight in World War I, Zelda meets novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and is Zelda's intrigued by him quickly, but doesn't respond to his advances.

As Scott pursues Zelda in Montgomery, she must decide what she can sacrifice to be with him.

Despite living worlds apart, Scott and Zelda grow closer. Zelda tries to decide if she loves him enough to uproot her whole life.