Film Review: ‘Young Washington’ is Hardly Worthy of the Father of Our Country

The birth of America, at least to me, is riveting, especially in the underdog nature of how the nation began. Do we live up to the ideals set forth by our founding fathers? No, not always (and I’m only talking about their idealistic goals for the country, not their many personal faults), but it’s a great aspiration, perfecting our union. So, a film about how one of the fathers of the country came to be that great man should be equally riveting. Instead, we have the kinda-sorta faith-based historical biopic Young Washington, which is such a nothing of a movie that it barely warrants the effort to write about it, let alone go see it. Coming as the America 250 celebration kicks off, this is one aspect of the festivities that you can safely skip. George Washington deserved better.

Young Washington, at its best, is like the children’s biographies of historical figures, giving you barely the Cliff Notes version of the story. Now, there are some decent enough battle sequences, but they’re marred by what sure seems like some very noticeable generative AI within, so that dampens the enthusiasm there. The flick is far from incompetent, I’ll say that, but it just ends up trafficking in thorough mediocrity.

You probably won’t be shocked to discover that this is the story of a young George Washington (Will Joseph as a boy and William Franklyn-Miller as an adult). Taking place over twelve years, as he moves from adolescence to early adulthood, we chart as he grows into the leader who could help start a revolution. Early on, mourning the death of his father, George is raised by a no-nonsense mother (Mary-Louise Parker), who needs him to help on the family farm. Thanks to his older half brother Lawrence (John Foss), George is educated and grows up to aspire to a life in the military.

A few years later, it’s 1755 and he’s wooing Sally Cary (Mia Rodgers), who also happens to have a father in Lord Fairfax (Kelsey Grammer) that George wishes to impress. An officer in the British Army during the French and Indian War, George succeeds and is commissioned by Virginia’s governor Robert Dinwiddie (Ben Kingsley) to lead the state’s militia into Ohio to recapture the land from the French. It doesn’t go well, though the disaster that is the Battle of Fort Necessity ends up eventually leading to his glorious success at the Battle of Fort Duquesne. Of course, George won’t always be fighting for the crown, as a revolution is just around the corner…

The cast here are all left hanging out to dry. William Franklyn-Miller is largely who we see playing a formative George Washington and he simply cuts a bland yet handsome profile. You buy him as a model, sure, but not as an eventual General. It’s not an awful performance, he’s simply miscast. The higher profile actors in supporting roles all stick out like sore thumbs, and again, while not bad, don’t do anything of note. Mostly, it’s nice to see Ben Kingsley and Mary-Louise Parker get a paycheck, while it’s hard not to just notice Kelsey Grammer as an avenue for the production to burnish its conservative credentials. In addition to the aforementioned Will Joseph and Mia Rodgers, the cast also includes Andy Serkis, among others.

Co-writer/director Jon Erwin has always been the most technically proficient of the lot to come out of the faith based filmmaking world, so it’s a shame to see the battle sequences likely staged with generative AI. They’re otherwise competently done, but the AI sticks out, which just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Erwin’s direction doesn’t do much for the cast, but he understands where to put a camera, etc. It’s in the screenplay he co-wrote with Diederik Hoogstraten and Tom Provost that you realize just how little this had to offer. The plot drags and is simply boring. Erwin also has a slack pacing to his work that suggests he thinks we’d be far more engrossed in these developments than we are, as the movie runs past the two hour mark.

Young Washington never approaches an overt badness, so it never becomes camp, which prevents it from being any fun. It ends up far more about an eventual hero who once spent some time fighting with a future enemy, which could have been fun. Instead, it’s an absolute slog. George, you deserved better.

SCORE: ★★