Thoughts on Young Washington?
Just watched the Young Washington movie early and I will say that I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Little problems here and there and a lot of inaccuracies but it doesn’t take away from the fact that this feels like a film that genuinely wants to tell a story from this time period. I would love to see more studios make more movies during the American revolutionary period and the 18th century overall besides just period romance dramas by Hallmark.
I am by no means an expert on the 18th century or the seven years war, but I did do some research into Washington’s involvement before watching this movie. This meant that throughout it, I picked out lots of inaccuracies with some being harmless and others being a bit questionable. However, I could totally be wrong about things so please correct me!
*Spoilers!!!*
The movie overall wants to emphasize the struggles Washington experienced to get you to empathize with him and build some tension as well as explain his “early” rebellion. To achieve this, the movie strangely makes up attitudes and shoves words into people’s mouths that can be considered disingenuous. For example, Governor DinWiddie is presented in the film as an arrogant British aristocrat who looks down on the colonists. However, DinWiddie was actually a colonist himself and I find it highly unlikely that he would talk down Washington for being a colonist when he is one himself. Braddock is also portrayed similarly, as he takes a disliking for Washington at first. However, Braddock literally chose to take Washington as his Aide de camp. Washington’s companions are also presented as not having a liking for the stuck of British and don’t wear proper uniforms in spite of them. I may be incorrect, but this kind of early conflict between the colonists and the British did not exist or was not as strong as this prior to the seven years war. You maybe see this a little bit after given the poor performance of the colonial militias needing to be bailed out by British regulars. But the colonists at this time still viewed themselves as English.
The movie also suffers a little bit from a mistake that historical movies usually run into, and that is covering way too much time. It means the pacing can be off putting at times and it can’t really cover too much of the actual details of each battle or explore tactics and strategy with much nuance. So if you are a military history enthusiast or a reenactor, don’t expect much you will be disappointed. Additionally, there is this strange romance subplot with Washington’s lover that doesn’t get anywhere and only achieves just adding another punch to Washington that is never mentioned again.
Despite this, the actions scenes are well done, they have an appropriate amount of grit that stretch the PG-13 rating. The battle scenes though are far from accurate. Probably the most accurate battle is the skirmish at Jumonville Glen but even then it sides with Washington’s account that blamed the natives of kicking off the violence which I am skeptical of. The rest of the battle scenes (especially the** **Battle of the Monongahela) are not very accurate. From the French and Indians emerging from their concealed positions in the woods when they did not in reality or having the French fire the first shots in Monongahela when it was actually the British who spotted them first and thus fired first.
Regardless, we don’t get much on this time period so I highly encourage people to see this movie to convince other producers that this time period is worth covering. I look forward to seeing Angel Studio’s upcoming American Revolution film!