Young Washington

"Washington! Washington!"

To Internet users of a particular vintage, those two words spoken together immediately trigger a semi-musical rapid hyper-ventilation and a litany of unlikely attributes and accomplishments ascribed to our first President. But The Boy and I kept that to a minimum as we partook of Young Washington on this 250th anniversary of our independence.

This is the latest big effort from Angel Studios, who did The Sound of Freedom, among others, complete with a pitch for you to buy tickets for people to come see the movie.

This is much like Sound of Freedom now that I think about it, with many of the same strengths and flaws. I think it's better overall, and highly enjoyable, yet not quite to the level of the Korean historical dramas we used to be able to see in Koreatown.

Significantly, however, it serves the same purpose. And it earned its $20M budget back at the box office on the first weekend, so it won't be a money loser. For The Boy and I, it increased our hunger for more such material, basically unplumbed since I was a child.

We begin with Washington desperate to find his own men at The Battle of the Monongahela, which they manage to pronounce less silly than I always do ("mun-ON-gah-HEE-la") and which they are losing, until a dysenteric young Washington charges into (against Thomas Gage's advice) to find the Virginia militia.

12 years earlier...

I was on the fence about the flashback. At first I thought, well, this is a start-the-movie-off-with-a-bang thing when I would've appreciated a slow build-up to get to this point. By the end of the movie, I thought they had done a good job with getting back to that point, and the movie was almost a superhero origin story as the socially adventurous Washington tries to climb through the British ranks only to get ahead of his own abilities and to lose the very wealthy girl to the more socially appropriate British noble, culminating in losing valuable men to his stubbornness in a humiliating defeat against the French.

The arc is very good, and very "Korean", if you will. The capable but proud leader finds humility in failure and learns the important thing is serving others. Sorry if that's trite: That's the way it plays out in the history books and it's a good lesson for everyone. 

William Farnklin-Meyer does a good job in the lead. He's handsome and believable, both in proud and petulant moments. Mia Rogers as love-interest Sally is beautiful and...uh...heaving...and is very convincing as the woman who loved Washington but gave him up for the more socially correct choice. They're both actually English, too, which is sort of amusing.

The big names in the cast are Kelsey Grammar, Andy Serkis and Ben Kingsley, all with small but meaty roles. Oh, and Mary Louise-Parker does an excellent job as Ma Washington. Great casting choice.

Good acting all around, in other words, which helps tremendously. It's also well edited. The sound—I thought some of the dialogue wasn't as crisp as it should've been, but otherwise it was quite good. Good use of score. 

The action is pretty good. It's Hollywood-ified, but if I'm not going to ding a Korean movie for that (and I never have), I'm certainly not going to ding an American one for it. The pacing is occasionally odd, reminding me a bit of Sound of Freedom. 

Storytelling like this is a muscle, and in America it's a muscle that's been underused since the Bicentennial.

On a technical level The Boy felt the portrayal of the battle scenes wasn't spot on. He didn't hold it against the movie much but he's jonesing for a movie that understands Linear warfare. Me hearing Bach and Petzold* at a 1755 English ball rankled me.

The Rotten Tomatoes split on this is predictable: 92% for audiences, 60% for America-hating critics, and for all the expected nonsense reasons. It's no Braveheart and not even The Patriot, but those movies were even more brutal to history than this was. This one very nicely blends true elements with a little modern education and some myth-building. I particularly enjoyed Washington's penchant for hacking away at tress when he was mad, and then him chipping in during the Ohio campaign to hack apart a tree that had stopped Braddock's army.

There is a wide range of juicy historical "Easter eggs" for the American Cinematic Universe, from the easiest ("Oh, you say there's an identity separate from the British here?") to more subtle ones ("Oh, you say Thomas Gage doesn't care about the colonials.") Lots of good classist snobbery (which is probably authentic, and even played down, honestly). Lots of, "Huh, slaves...are going to be a problem eventually, ain't they?" that recall the Nate Bargatze "Washington" sketch.

Good stuff. Recommended if you don't hate America. Even if you're so-so on America, you can have a good time.

*I just this second learned that Bach's Minuet in G was actually written by Christian Petzold, and this was discovered in the late '70s. News just reached me, some 50 years later.