Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: YOUNG WASHINGTON [Tribeca Film Festival - New York, New York]
The context of a young man trying to make his bones in a conflicted world is, of course, the stuff of mythology. With "Young Washington" [Spotlight Narrative], made by Angel Studios, it follows the perspective of a young man in George Washington (William Franklin Miller -- who holds the screen intently with his want to be something more). Washington is a Virginian in a world where unless you have a royal commission you don’t have station. Washington is proper (and trained by himself) after his father dies. His older brother helps him find his way through. Because of marriage his brother is better off and George has to claw for any access (just because he is not noble). Kelsey Grammer shows up briefly as Lord Fairfax as well as Ben Kingsley as the overseer of British forces. Washington offers himself voluntarily to do a survey of the Ohio Territory for Fairfax which puts him in conflict on two fronts but he just wants to make his bones. Washington realizes that he is being made a pawn but admits that it is better to be in the game than not. He ultimately fails but that teaches him so much.
Miller commands an earnestness but also a steadfast intent as the young man. We see him upset and the cherry tree is not spared. But the film itself is sweeping vision. Shot primarily in Ireland there are some cool visions of what the colonies looked like (with a couple pieces shot actually in Virginia). A sequence in an ice covered river on a raft looks pretty real wherever it was shot (or just good FX). The film builds well showing the young man redeeming himself but not on the basis of greed but of virtue. One of the best performances actually comes from Andy Serkis as Captain Braddock during the final battle. Serkis uses his chameleon voice and brings a weight the film might not have had bringing more depth than Kingsley and Grammer, no offense to them. The great thing that "Young Washington" shows is the man's loyalty to his friends because he is not bound by station. Now whether or not this was inherent truth is not proven or disproven but it paints an interesting picture of the man who would become the first president of the USA, set 21 years before the signing of the Declaration Of Indepedence in 1755. "Young Washington" doesn’t pull punches but it does give an uplifting if not brutal view of the forming of one of the first true Americans in his formative years. B+
By Tim Wassberg
