I can’t believe there isn’t a great Hollywood movie about George Washington. There are multiple books, documentaries and mini series, and of course, Hamilton, sorta. But for how outsized a role Mr. President played in the formation of the United States of America, very little attempt has been made to portray his life on the big screen. So on the 250th Anniversary of the Country, I’m excited to see there’s at least one movie now about the original Founding Father. We all gotta start somewhere right?
Before George Washington (William Franklyn-Miller) crossed the Delaware River, he was just a young boy growing up in Mount Vernon Virginia. The movie details Washington’s life from the death of his father in 1743, to the world altering turn at the Battle of Monongahela in 1755. During this time, we see that boy rise from “uneducated” farmer through the British military ranks in the colonies, surveying the Ohio territory for Thomas Fairfax (Kelsey Grammer), and his early struggles becoming a leader, especially at Fort Necessity, maybe as world altering as the Battle of Monongahela.
As you might expect, being a basically first George Washington film, Jon Erwin of Angel Studios directs Young Washington from the sunnier, propaganda based point of view (slave owning is mentioned, and quickly forgotten as an example). When George Washington speaks it’s William Franklyn Miller chiseled and resolved, using high school yearbook quotes instead of character development. When George Washington is on a horse or in battle, he’s going to be epically shot riding across beautiful Virginia countryside and Irish Americana (hehe). I’ve got no beef there; GW is kind of a big deal right? I do have a beef as the movie plays fast and loose with George’s history, mostly in the big climax. The Battle of Monongahela is hysterical (and ugly like all the battles; the Gen AI looks sh*tty). I think the entire French and Native American armies fire bullets at him and like Neo from the Matrix they just whiz by him, missing their target, as ordained by god. Don’t believe me? The last scene of the movie is the really icky one, taking made up stories about George Washington lore and making an uncomfortable, gross statement trying to turn the Founding Father into American Jesus that just isn’t necessary. George’s tale is heroic enough.
And I know this because the first half of Young Washington finds a great narrative structure. The tag line might as well be Making a Patriot. One of the great ideas of the American experiment was that anyone could come from anything to be someone. Jon Erwin turns George Washington into the embodiment of that idea. He jumps at each opportunity to become something in life, pushing for new experiences to prove his worth to his British commanders. Each new adventure even without battles is exciting: the surveying of the Ohio Territory is wonderfully shot, capturing the wildness of the land as our hero marches into this great unknown. Being young and idealistic, George learns the hard way about consequences and reality in his pursuit of fame and acceptance into high society. The Fort Necessity sequence is the one great battle exception, wonderfully showing Washington’s misguided approach and understanding of leadership and the horrific results in terms of people he loses. And, how the British use him as a scapegoat to evade their own responsibilities. Before Erwin turns Young Washington into American Jesus, I was having a great time watching a normal boy transform into the man we read about in history books, and the important Wikipedia bullet points that shaped who he became without the deification.
So all in all, Young Washington could have been much worse. I’ll settle for teacher hangover day material, helping 8th graders get through 5th period American History. Oh, and Angel Studios, stop with those special messages, exploiting well meaning people for your phantom box office gain. It makes me really not root for you and your movies. What would Jesus do? Real Jesus, not American Jesus.