Jennifer Lawrence to play Zelda Fitzgerald in biopic centred around a painful relationship question

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‘Please let him earn more money than I do, you might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day’

This line from Up in the Air (2009), when Alex details her perfect man, has always stuck with me, a passing comment about the friction between relationships and careers.

Are couples better off if both parties are financial equals? Need they be engaged in different professions?

These issues will be explored in Ron Howard’s new film Zelda, which, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is centred around the question: Can love exist between creative equals?

Jennifer Lawrence will play the titular Zelda Fitzgerald, a novelist, socialite and the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It was this subordinate association to The Great Gatsby author that played on her mind in later life, when she became determined to find a talent that was entirely her own. Her mental health worsened, and in April 1930 Zelda was admitted to a sanatorium where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She would later write a semi-biographical novel in which the protagonist tries to establish herself independently of her husband. It was panned by critics.

Emma Frost (The Man in the High Castle, Shameless) is writing the screenplay, with Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) planning on directing.

Allison Shearmur, who worked with Lawrence on The Hunger Games, will produce, along with Brian Oliver, who most recently produced the award season-buzzing Hacksaw Ridge.