Written By: Bob Gordon
Our latest Faith Film Fan Podcast is 250 years in the making!
Co-host Rick Altizer recently sat down with Diederik Hoogstraten, who cowrote the new movie YOUNG WASHINGTON (along with director Jon Erwin and Tom Provost). The movie, from the Wonder Project and Angel Studios, arrives in movie theaters July 3—just in time for the Independence Day weekend.
The story takes us into George Washington’s life and military service before he was the Father of Our Country. As the movie’s website states:
“Before he was the Father of a Nation, he was a soldier fighting to survive. A single misstep thrusts young George Washington into the center of a global conflict, testing his honor, loyalty, and courage. As alliances crumble and the frontier erupts into war, he must confront not only his enemies, but the man he’s becoming.”
YOUNG WASHINGTON seems a fitting story to tell (and see!) as America celebrates its 250th birthday on July 4.
“Jon Erwin said let’s make him human … let’s try to understand this man who helped shape who we are today in such a crucial way,” Hoogstraten said. “It’s like excavating a figure from the past as (Jon) did with King David from the Bible to see him for the human who he was so that we can respect and admire him even more.”
But why start with a young Washington instead of General Washington or President Washington? Hoogstraten said,
“There’s a natural ending (in the movie) I’m not going to give away, but where we see him lean in to leadership, servant leadership, that I think at the end of the film sets him up on the path basically toward the Revolution, toward the War of Independence, toward his presidency—the things we know about. But we wanted to show the powers that forged him into the man he became well before anything we knew later.”
Another question: how does faith play into YOUNG WASHINGTON?
“I’m a person of faith myself and having studied this period of his life for a while now, I see the divine hand and the destiny very clearly there,” Hoogstraten said. “He was being protected, there’s no question in my mind. He was destined to lead us if you will, to lead the country.”
If you’d like to learn more about YOUNG WASHINGTON before seeing the movie in theaters beginning July 3, be sure to listen to the FFF Podcast. We can’t wait to hear what you think about the movie.
