I saw Young Washington. I thought the previews for this looked good, and it’s gotten pretty good reviews, so I gave it a try. It was exciting and stirring in a harmlessly jingoistic way, and it was an interesting look at a time and a man we only generally know from what came after. They do a creditable job of showing Washington struggling with his role in society, facing barriers because of his colonial birth rather than English, and some class challenges, and they show him adapting to failure and hardship in interesting ways, pointing to the road he’d take towards leading a revolution. I would have preferred a little more day-to-day life and less war, but he was a general after all. Battle scenes are violent but only at the tamer end of PG-13.

I read up on the historical accuracy after seeing it, and like most historical biopics, it sounds like it’s hit-or-miss, but with most of it being largely true, and some of the misses only adjusted to make for a movie that made a little more sense and covered a little less time. I usually prefer when they alter less, but there seem to be no great sins here (unlike, say, The Patriot or Inglorious Basterds).

Slavery is not entirely glossed over, but coverage is very, very thin. There are a handful of scenes with enslaved people and a couple lines from their mouths, but that’s it. This omission and the lack of judgment passed upon the mortal sin staining America’s birth speak volumes, and not good volumes, about what the filmmakers were willing to ignore to make a feel-good July 4th movie.

Interaction with what I think were the Iroquois Confederacy is a more major part of it, although there’s a very weird clunky spiritual scene late on (think how Indians were portrayed in movies and TV the ’70s, and you’re pretty much there for this scene, except I think at least these are all actual native actors in authentic period dress). Other than this scene, the rest of the movie did a better job with portraying the Indians as independent, knowledgeable, effective, and screwed.

I did not know going in that this was from Utah-based crowd-run studio Angel, which sometimes does faith-ey movies, a genre that’s decidedly not for me, but this didn’t have much of that other than in a couple places, and religious language and professions of faith were pervasive in that era anyway, so perfectly ok.

So, a qualified thumbs up. I liked it, and I would see more like it.