So Big is a 1953 American drama film directed by Robert Wise. The screenplay by John Twist is based on the 1924 novel by Edna Ferber. It is the third adaptation of the book, following a 1924 silent film with Colleen Moore and So Big! with Barbara Stanwyck, released in 1932.
In the late 1890s, boarding school student Selina Peake learns of the death of her father, who has left her penniless as the result of bad business transactions. August Hempel, the father of her best friend Julie, secures her a teaching position in New Holland, a small Dutch farming community outside Chicago. There she rents a room in the home of Klaas Pool, who lives with his unhappy wife Maartje and intelligent but troubled adolescent son Roelf.
After discovering the boy has an ear for music, Selina gives Roelf piano lessons and encourages his artistic talents, leading him away from juvenile delinquency. She meets Pervus DeJong and eventually accepts his proposal of marriage, settling into the daily routine of a farmer's wife. The two have a son they christen Dirk, but as he grows older he is nicknamed So Big.
Dirk, like Roelf, exhibits signs of artistic abilities, and his mother encourages him, despite her
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