So Big

The daughter of a wealthy family comes as a schoolteacher to a Dutch community outside Chicago. The place is nothing like the world she grew up in. There she falls in love with a poor but big hearted farmer and marries him. Life does not go the way she expected; the money goes, the work grows harder. She is left with the land and with her son. The film pulls the measure of success away from money and towards the work done. The account wanders between generations. The hundred and one minutes are spread over many years. Jane Wyman and Sterling Hayden take the leads, with Nancy Olson also in the cast. Robert Wise’s American film was completed in 1953.