When you think about it, the Revolutionary War, Colonies, and the Founding Fathers aren’t explored enough in modern film. There have been some good television series, like ‘John Adams’ and ‘TURN: Washington’s Spies.’ ‘Outlander’ dipped into the Revolutionary War milieu in its later seasons.
But you have to go back to Mel Gibson’s ‘The Patriot’ for a truly decent movie set in the Colonies. And that was 26 years ago. In contrast, World War 2, Vietnam, the Civil War and modern wars like Afghanistan are more heavily explored on film. It’s worth wondering why, but I suspect it stems from Hollywood’s cultural elitism. I googled Revolutionary War movies to see if I was forgetting any, and one list had only 8 and a couple of those were TV movies and one dated to 1939 (Drums Along the Mohawk). ‘Last of the Mohicans’ also explored the French and Indian Wars.
I realized that I know very little about George Washington or the early days of this country, and I enjoy history and have been to Mount Vernon. I realize there are gaps in my knowledge that I would like to rectify.
It is in that spirit that I embraced ‘Young Washington.’ It made me realize that I crave learning more about our nation’s formation and the men who forged it. I’m guessing there are others who feel the same way. The movie received applause in my sold-out Wisconsin theater on July 4.
It’s a story that America’s cultural elites are apparently not very keen on telling; Donald Trump’s administration is doing a public service by amping up America’s 250th. It will perhaps inspire more people to learn about people like Washington beyond the caricature and broad strokes (the cherry tree story, crossing the Delaware.)
It’s Not ‘Braveheart’ – and That Doesn’t Matter
‘Young Washington’ is not a perfect movie. Its battle scenes are not at the epic level of ‘Braveheart’ or ‘Saving Private Ryan’, not by a long shot, bringing it at times a TV movie or Masterpiece Theater feel. The British (yes, British) actor who plays Washington (William Franklyn-Miller) is a bit one-note, and his impossibly smooth good looks look like the product of modern skincare and diet not the 1754 frontier. He did capture the noble determination of Washington and his impressive height. The great actors in the film, like Ben Kingsley, are underused.
But none of this matters.
It doesn’t matter because the movie magestically delivers on its intent: to educate Americans about the conditions that provoked the great American experiment and about our first president himself. The beauty of the film is that it doesn’t complicate this storyline. There’s nothing woke about it. It’s refreshingly simple. Because the concept was. All are created equal. And we have a right to freedom.
Washington is shown as a young fatherless man with only tenant farming in his future, mired in the limits placed on him by the archaic British rules that favored aristocracy and the circumstances of birth. In that merit-rejecting society, there is no way to get ahead.
In a modern world where we’re constantly being told to view the Founders pessimistically, this was an important reminder of what they were fighting against and for: a system where all are created equal, and where no one is prevented a chance at the American dream just because of caste. For freedom. Of religion, speech, assembly, the press…
Yes, the movie doesn’t deeply explore the horrors of slavery, but that’s because it’s focused on excavating Washington’s military growth. However, although imperfectly realized even by Washington himself in the country’s earliest years, as he and his family owned slaves, the American framework that the Founders created has thankfully expanded throughout history to include all. It was a beautiful experiment – to create a Constitutional framework that champions freedom and a system where all can get ahead through hard work – and it has thankfully been more fully realized over time.
Not surprisingly, there is a wide gap on Rotten Tomatoes between elite critics and audiences. The former score it 58%, the latter 93%. This continues my belief that national critics are too often judging movies through an ideological lens. This is not a pessimistic view of America. Perhaps they have one.
Failure Makes Success
Thematically, the movie argues that even a great failure is sometimes necessary for great success. We are shown Washington suffering a great military defeat, launching the French and Indian War (which was really the British Crown vs. the French Crown with different tribes taking up different sides in a fight for the Ohio frontier.) Yet, he throws off the yoke of failure by learning the limits of conventional warfare (head for the trees not lined up in open field! And those red coats make one quite an easy target.) One can see how his strategic defeat early on planted the seeds that grew into the knowledge needed to defeat the British on the Revolutionary War battlefield that was to come (but not in this movie; I hope they make a sequel.)
The movie is spiritual, not overtly religious.
Washington dashes into an impossible battlefield and all bullets miss him. This provoked an indigenous leader to marvel that he had told all of his warriors to shoot at Washington; that none hit strikes the leader as divine protection.
In a letter posted by Mount Vernon, Washington wrote in real life, “By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho’ death was levelling my companions on every side.”
The film was created by the faith-friendly Angel Studios.
I knew precious little about Washington’s pre-Revolutionary War military history. And I knew even less about his family, including the mentorship he received from an older half brother. The movie will inspire you to want to learn more, and it turns out this film pretty closely tracks reality.
This messaging strikes me as the opposite of the modern political left, personified by Zohran Mamdani’s negative July 4 rant and Fran Hong’s socialist rail-at-the-successful doom agenda. The left posits that the Founding Fathers should not be celebrated (actually they were complex).
The modern left insists that non-whites in this country can’t really ever get ahead no matter how hard they work because they’re shackled by the chains of systemic racism. What a terrible message to send young people! That your future is doomed by a ceiling you can’t break. No wonder they’re angry!
While I certainly believe there is racism in society now and in the past (slavery and Jim Crow were horrific, for example), the above is an ironically gloomy argument coming from a socialist born in Uganda who rose high enough here to achieve being elected mayor of the nation’s largest city – and who retains the right to rant about remaking the very country that welcomed him.
This is a simple movie, in a good way. It’s family friendly; it would be a great movie for youth to see. It’s a reminder that the founding of this country and its ideals could easily have not happened but for the courage and providence of a small group of men to whom we all owe a very large debt – yes, ALL of us, because the American dream can be attained by ALL. Do some start with advantages like generational wealth? Yes. But this nation has had a black president and vice president. Milwaukee County currently has a black mayor, county executive, congresswoman, sheriff and police chief. The Common Council president is Latino. The Republican Party’s likely nominee for lieutenant governor is a black man.
The country is closer to its founding ideals than ever before, so stop telling some kids they have no chance to get ahead. Stop with the perpetually gloomy view of this country. As a woman, I wouldn’t have been able to vote or own property when Washington lived. However, I am a direct descendant of a Revolutionary War soldier (Christian Detterer).
What he fought for has given me and others the most freedom experienced by any people living anywhere on this globe. I feel like I won the Powerball of life just by being born in this country. We all did. It’s time that Hollywood catches up.
Thumb’s up.
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