Young Washington: How Young George Washington Screwed Up and Started a World War

July 2026

 

Ah... William Franklyn-Miller...

 

He of that chiseled face...

And 6’4 inches of so much Apollonian male beauty...

One becomes easily distracted...

 

But as George Washington?

 

The man with dentures made of human and cow teeth, elephant ivory and lead..

Because he was already losing his teeth...

 

In his twenties...

 

And although George was tall for his age...

Washington was not known for being handsome...

 

So whose idea was it to cast Franklyn-Miller?

 

A model...

And someone once voted the World’s Most Beautiful Boy...

 

As the Father of Our Country...

 

Because Franklyn-Miller is just too pretty for the role of the young George Washington...

 

Now he does know how to strike a pose...

 

So when Young George is worried...

Angry...

Happy...

Or sad...

 

He always looks like he is in a Celine ad...

 

But this was the only casting mistake...

In Young Washington...

 

Which managed to land...in what I would call a casting coup for Angel Studios...

 

The Provo Utah outfit most known for The Chosen and The Sound of Freedom...

Films that did well at the box office, but were not exactly embraced by the entertainment elite...

Because they were largely made for flyover country...

 

Kelsey Grammer....

 

But he is no surprise...because he is well known for leaning to the Right politically...

 

But Ben Kingsley...

 

Andy Serkis... who brought his Marvel cred...

And Mary Louise Parker...

 

And they did not disappoint...

And brought a gravitas to Young Washington that I wasn’t expecting...

 

Because this is not the kind of talent one finds in films made by a studio that usually crowd funds its movies...

 

So the Angel Studio connection was the reason I wasn’t expecting much when I went to Young Washington...

 

Because if there is anything the Entertainment Right has not learned how to do...

 

It’s make a decent movie...

 

Because their films are usually so bogged down by so much over eager earnestness...

They become cringe...

 

Like Reagan... which was simply awful...

 

But interesting films are so sparse in theaters right now...

 

That this week The Critical Drinker posted ...

About a trailer...

Of an upcoming film...

 

But it was the Fourth...

 

So against my better judgment ...because I’ve been burned too many times by movies made for the Right...

 

I grabbed a movie theater hot dog...

Which I always regret...

And settled in for Young Washington...

 

And I was pleasantly surprised....

 

Because in Young Washington, George is not some flawless hero..

Whose exploits during the French and Indian War were the opening act...

In the career of the man...

Immortalized by Mason Locke Weems in The Life of George Washington...

 

The writer who was single handedly responsible...

For the “Myth of Washington”...

 

And the story of the cherry tree...

Which was, of course, apocryphal...

 

Now in Young Washington...

George does cut trees...

When he is frustrated...

 

But he is no saint..

And this film is not a hagiography...

 

George screws up..

He gets his men killed..

He is arrogant.. ambitious...

Impulsive...

Quick to anger...

 

Even more quick to quit...

 

And a social climber...

 

So this film is more in line with Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life

 

Than the myth Mason Locke Weems so carefully constructed...

Which for over more than a century...

Was the story school children were told...

 

But I suspect... not any more...

 

Jon Erwin does take some literary license in places...

 

Because Washington was not as poor nor as socially down market as he is portrayed in this film...

 

And yes, when dad died he did not get to go to school like his older brother...

In England.....

 

And dysentery...

 

Which has been the scourge of armies from time immemorial...

Means you are constantly squatting over by a tree...

Not just sweating in bed as George does in this movie.....

 

But I guess that would not have been cinematically appropriate...

 

Now the battle scenes were better than expected...

Especially for a film with this budget...

 

But I did miss Ridley Scott’s finesse...

Because he does large set piece battles very well...

 

But these are not major problems...

 

And Young Washington does not avoid the issue of slavery...
Nor what was happening to the Native Americans...

 

Although the reason why any of the tribes would ally with either the French and English...

Is left largely unexplained...

 

And although the slaves are there...and acknowledged...

They are kept in the background....

 

But what Young Washington really gets right...

 

Is that George did singlehandedly start the French and Indian War...

And he made some massive mistakes early in that conflict...
Often because of naivete and over confidence...

 

And this is bigger deal than the movie lets on...

 

Because The French and Indian War...

Which is its American name...

 

And not its real name....

 

Was in reality just one front...

 

In the Seven Years War...

 

Which pitted France and England, as well as Prussia and Spain...

In the first global world war...

That was fought not just in North America, but in Europe, India, the Caribbean..

And the Philippines...

 

And was really the match that lit the fuse of the American Revolution...

 

So George’s screwup... was a big deal...

 

Now Young Washington doesn’t touch on the implications of this conflict beyond America...

 

But it is clear eyed about what lessons it taught him...

Which Chernow argues were not so much tactical...

As they were about endurance and leadership...and resolve...

 

Because George wasn’t particularly clever...

Nor a great battlefield technician...

But he was tenacious... and not easily deterred...

 

And so it was a pleasant surprise...

 

To finally see a film about a Founding Father...

 

That was not the Take Down the Left loves...

Nor the hagiography the Right too often falls for...

 

But a decent movie...

About a man who had his faults...

But who had an important impact on world history....

 

Decades before the American Revolution...

 

But my real take away from this film...

Which spends a lot of time on the class bound nature of British society...

 

Was how George...

Despite his initial desire to rise in the ranks of British society...

Which was initially thwarted at almost every turn...

 

Was the product of a culture...

Of scrappy colonials...

 

Who were unwilling to take no for an answer...

 

And that was the real American exceptionalism...

 

So ... as the Brits ...

 

Who today have the per capita GDP of Mississippi...

 

Continue to look down on us as uncouth barbarians...

Who are incapable...

And...more importantly... in their opinion...

Disinterested in being civilized ...

 

Young Washington is a reminder of how much you can’t see ...

 

When you are looking down your nose at someone...

​

 

​

​

 

​

 

 

​

​

 

​

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

​

 

​

 

​

​

 

​

​

​

​​

 

​

​

​

​

 

                                                      

 

​

 

​​

​​

​​

​

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

​

​

 

​

 

​

​

 

​

​​

 

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​

​

 

​

​

​

 

​

 

​

​

 

​

 

​

​​

​

 

​

 

​

 

​

 

​​

 

​

​

​

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

 

​

 

​

​

​

 

​

 

 

 

 

​

 

​

 

​

​

​

 

​

​

​

​

​

​​