Young Washington

One might think that a movie about George Washington timed to hit U.S. theaters in time for the country’s celebration of its 250^th anniversary would depict the general beating back the British army or the president helping a new nation get on its feet. But no, as the title suggests, this is about the early years of the soldier and statesman, when what he wanted most was a royal posting to help elevate his social position. It’s a story about a somewhat callow young man learning to put responsibility and ethics over ambition, and if that sounds dry, well, it is.

To his credit, director and co-writer Jon Erwin (Jesus Revolution) has emerged as a faith-based filmmaker who understands the basic nuts and bolts of filmmaking. Details like where to put a camera and how to light a shot inform his competent brand of cinema, which is not insignificant, as his predecessors in the field seemed to dismiss these skills as extraneously secular. Even if the casting of Kelsey Grammer and For King & Country musician Joel David Smallbone serves as a dog-whistle that lets its target Christian demographic know that this movie exists to put American history in the hands of Evangelicals, Young Washington otherwise goes light on spiritual messaging, apart from one egregious scene that suggests that our hero survived the French-Indian War because he was shielded from above.

We meet George Washington as a young boy (Will Joseph), upset at the death of his father and further crushed to learn that he will have to forfeit schooling to help his mother (Mary-Louise Parker) tend to the family farm. George’s much-older half-brother Lawrence (John Foss) takes it upon himself to educate the boy, and Lawrence’s status, thanks to his marriage and his military rank, give the child life goals focused upon climbing the social ladder.

When George (played as an adult by William Franklyn-Miller) comes of age, he strategically crashes a party so that he can flirt with Sally Cary (Mia Rodgers) and, more importantly, impress her father Lord Fairfax (Kelsey Grammer). Washington tells the nobleman that he will put a team together to survey his land in the Ohio valley, and to keep an eye out for French troops who are encroaching on territory that the British have claimed for their own. (Never mind, of course, that indigenous populations already possess the contested area.) All of this leads to Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie (Ben Kingsley) commissioning Washington for the state’s militia; the young soldier’s arrogance leads to disaster in the Battle of Fort Necessity before a chastened Washington redeems himself at the Battle of Fort Duquesne.

While the A-listers (Kingsley, Parker, Andy Serkis) make the most of their relatively brief appearances — and Smallbone steals his scene as a hissable, arrogant aristocrat — the supporting characters wind up being far more interesting and multi-dimensional than our hero. Young Washington treats Washington more as a concept than as a person, and that idea is underscored by Franklyn-Miller, who has the angular features of a runway model but also the blankness of one. Washington suffers tragedy and shame and redemption, and very few of those moments register on the actor’s face.

Erwin’s most impressive achievements here are the battle sequences; they won’t make anyone forget Barry Lyndon or even Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, but between Kristopher Kimlin’s photography and David de Vos’ editing, they capture both the chaos of war and the specific fighting styles of the era. (The British believe in lining up their riflemen, while the French surround them and ambush them from their hiding places in the woods.)

Then there are the closing credits, which stop in their tracks for a plea from Grammer to “pay it forward,” which like many an Evangelical pitch, sounds better on paper than in practice. The idea is for audience members to purchase tickets for those who can’t afford them; in reality, it’s a way for distributor Angel to artificially inflate its box-office numbers even as the film screens to “sold out” empty houses. It’s a bait-and-switch not unlike the tactics that an older Washington would use against the army of a king whose favor he once sought.

Director: Jon Erwin
Screenwriters: Jon Erwin, Tom Provost, Diederik Hoogstraten
Cast: William Franklyn-Miller, Andy Serkis, Ben Kingsley, Mary-Louise Parker, Kelsey Grammer, Joel David Smallbone, Leo Hanna
Executive producers: Parker Adams, Benton Crane, Donna Eperon, Ted Field, David E. Fischer, Robert Girard, Jon Gunn, Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten, Ben Howard, Macdara Kelleher, Edmund Sampson, Mike Strong
Producers: Chip Diggins, Jon Erwin, Adam Abel, Kristy Choo, Kristopher Kimlin, Tyler Zacharia
Director of photography: Kristopher Kimlin
Production design: Chad Krowchuk
Editing: David de Vos
Sound design: James Fonnyadt, supervising sound editor, sound supervisor
Production companies: Angel, Wonder Project, 10 Ton Productions, 2521 Entertainment
In English
125 minutes