Young Washington's Inspired Take on Early America is the Weekend Film You Need
America 250 Movie Review
It is like the sun decided to move to the Potomac for America 250. It is hot. And yet for you, my readers I got up early to see Young Washington from The Wonder Project and Angel Studios. It is the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Necessity, July 3rd, 1754.
In a world of kings, lords, commoners, and slaves, George Washinton is decidedly a commoner. This is a film about becoming and belonging. He is not the George Washington, he is Mr. Washington, the little brother of Captain Lawrence Washington. Lawrence is the man George looks up to, he has been away, educated in England and fighting for the crown in the Caribbean. Their father has died, while George’s stern mother will take charge of him, Lawrence’s new cause is to lift up his kid brother and help him become a man.
George Washington’s struggle is ironically a proxy for the American story. The discrimination he receives as a “colonial” or “provincial” and the disrespect to his face is clear. The concern Lawrence has for George’s ambitions, and fear that the class system will dash his hopes parallels the concern of older Black Americans in the 20th century for the ambitions of Black youth. Is the new world really new? That question is at heart of freedom struggle, and the film shows the audience the tension. Showing rather than telling is a strength of the film. Slavery is seamlessly weaved into the story, as it should be. In 1750s Virginia slavery was normal and accepted, oppressive yes, and still accepted. The film portrays it that way, the indifference to the fate of the slaves is clear and also appropriately unremarked upon. Which I think will be more be provocative to audiences, who often struggled to see themselves in the position of the slaves. Americans understand casual indifference.
However, this also a coming-of-age through war film. War on the frontier is not Whites versus the Indigenous, no, the movie shows the reality: there were multiple sides. Europeans versus Europeans versus Indigenous versus Indigenous. The Seneca leader, the Half-King has his own agenda and why shouldn’t he? It is his land and he knows his opponents view it as their land. He will do what he must and that may mean helping the young inexperienced man from Virginia. The French are determined to destroy British power in the Ohio Valley, and they will without hesitation kill George Washington and his Virginians to do it.
The presence of the class system is pervasive. I enjoy movies from this period and wish we had more because the colonial era was when America was a society with old world concerns and struggles. An America of nobles and warriors, and one where the Virginians have to wonder, “if we are the inferiors, why are we being sent to frontier?” Virginia is already a century and half old by the time of the French and Indian War, and George Washington’s men are pulled from the traditional British lower classes and do not share his ambition, however they have pride in their dominion. And they know that George is like them, a commoner from Virginia, but one who clearly wants to be seen as the equal of the British. And the question lingers, why? The story is one about answering the questions of youth, learning from failure, and growing into your identity. It is about both accepting and shaping your fate.
George Washington must become a mature son of Virginia before he can be the father of an American nation.
The battle scenes are violent without being gratuitous and while there is light romance it is nothing beyond the PG level. The PG-13 rating is because of the war scenes and sense of danger. Parental discernment of course, but there was not much to keep families with older elementary school kids from seeing it if you were planning an outing.
The acting and cinematography flow so that the characters fold into the period and the scenery of old Virginia. Hopefully the heat does not keep audiences from the theater. I recommend Young Washington for your Independence Day weekend viewing pleasure.
Young Washington stars William Franklyn-Miller as George Washington, and John Foss as Lawrence Washington. With Mary-Louise Parker as Mary Ball Washington, Ryan Begay as the Half-King Tanacharison, Ben Kingsley as Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie, Andy Serkis as British General Edward Braddock, and Kelsey Grammer as Lord Thomas Fairfax.
It was written and directed by Jon Erwin.
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