If nothing else, the new film about George Washington — released just in time for Donald Trumps’ 80th, I mean America’s 250th, birthday — will give our overworked schoolteachers a break. It’s all too easy to imagine them putting their feet up on their desks and taking a well-deserved nap while screening the film for their middle-school students. Depicting the military adventures of our first president when he was only in his early 20s during the French and Indian War, Young Washington provides an historical origin story that fits in well during our current superhero craze.
After an early scene in which we see 12-year-old George (Will Joseph) left bereft by the death of his father and consoled by his strong-willed mother Mary (Mary-Louise Parker) and half-brother Lawrence (John Foss), the rest of the story takes place in 1855. George (William Franklyn-Miller, Dongji Rescue), now a strapping, model-handsome 22-year-old man, is desperately ambitious to rise above his modest station in life.
Young Washington
The Bottom Line
Like a Classics Illustrated comic book come to very stiff life.
