George Washington

Don't look for a simple, linear plot line or resolutions to what you think are the problems. "George Washington" is the offspring of "Gummo" and "Stand by Me", and a very distant relative to "Eraserhead" (but with a soul). The dialog is often beyond the age, character, and scope of the kids depicted (similar to "Brick"), which can be disconcerting, yet, when suspending disbelief, remained interesting. The scoring is dark and moody – and seldom lets up. On occasion, the lack of actor training can be seen in the kids, but for the most part they do a good job. The locations are full of dying and dead culture – rich, textural, beautiful crumbling Industrial Revolution. This is a ponderous, sometimes overly artful film that is none the less worth seeing and considering afterwards. It has things to say – and you're expected to use your own mind.

"I like to go to beautiful places where there's waterfalls and empty fields"… Nasia

George Washington is a meandering, moody, and hypnotic look at a group of black children, ages 9 to 14, during one summer in North Carolina. This was my second viewing and it remained a deeply satisfying experience. Though at times self-conscious, George Washington brings to mind Terence Malick's Days of Heaven with its voice-over narration, languid, dreamy tone, and gorgeous cinematography.

The youngsters are shown talking and playing aimlessly among the squalid junkyards and abandoned buildings of their neighborhood. They do not talk much about their hopes for the future but focus on their families and their girl friends and boy friends. The dialogue is partly improvised and, like Days of Heaven, allows the characters to speak in a manner that is slightly more poetic and contemplative than the average teenager.

The narrator, Nasia (Candace Evanofski), is a 12-year-old who has just broken up with her 13-year-old boyfriend Buddy (Curtis Cotton III) because, in her view, he's too young and immature. She's more attracted to Buddy's friend George (Donald Holden), a quiet and serious boy who always wears a helmet to protect his soft skull. They hang out with their friends, a mismatched pair of amateur car thieves named Vernon (Damian Jewan Lee) and Sonya (Rachael Handy), and also with Rico (Paul Schneider), a local railroad worker. Buddy shares his sadness with Rico who comforts him with his own story of lost love.

When an unexpected tragedy occurs, each of them must look closer at themselves and struggle to make an emotional connection with the events. They come to their realizations at different moments throughout the film and slowly begin to change in different ways. George, for one, after saving a drowning boy in a swimming pool becomes a neighborhood hero. Those realizations, however, do not provide an instantaneous fix and Green does not provide a forced happy ending.

Green has said, "One of the reasons I made this movie is because movies talk down to kids, put them as a cute little kid with a box of cereal and a witty joke," says Green. "You watch movies like Kindergarten Cop and it's like, 'Oh, a kid said something about sex. Isn't that funny?' It's just annoying and it makes me sad for their parents."

George Washington presents a view of teens that is not condescending but shows each character as a person of dignity and worth. It uniquely captures the confusion of adolescence, the need to belong, to believe life is or can be important, and the universal longing for love. Green has looked into the squalor and found beauty. Like a poem of Walt Whitman, he has expressed the divine in the commonplace.

After only writing a few reviews, I promised myself I would not give a film a perfect score too easily, but I cannnot resist. George Washington is truly astonishing and touching piece of cinema. Some people have called one of the best films of the new decade. This is definitely not too far from the truth. As the summary had said it is told very deceptively but we do not know the director has up his sleeve both plot wise and emotionally.

One of the best things about this film is its realism. David Gordon Green captured the essence of how kids today speak. Often we find in the usual "tween" movies that the young kids speak perfect English, always have good posture, speak with a clear voice, and have a wide vocabulary. I sound like one of my teachers. In the real world, this is not how kids actually talk and Mr. Green should be commended for bringing this to the masses.

As many people know, this film has great cinematography and the location is an area rarely seen in movies today. It even rivals Malick's. The opening scenes in particular have great cinematography. They are a hook to the viewers that enchants them to keep watching. The sub-satisfactory location is turned into a beautiful not quite urban or rural town of mystery and intrigue.

Yes, I will say it. This film is very moving. I know I will sound like a sap but it is moving in the true sense of the word. It is never overly sentimental or sappy. It feels so genuine. Few films recently have been so affecting on this level. The film has a very provocative take on redemption I like how the director used amateurs to add even more realism to the movie. The acting was pretty good, too. Stay clear if this movie if you do not have a good attention span (most reviewers are complaining about this). It is drawn out but oh so rewarding. Highly recommended.

David Gordon Green's first miniscule-budget movie is strange and disconcerting, and appears to lack a real focus; but maybe that's its theme - the aimlessness and randomness of life in a poor North Carolina neighbourhood. But not from the conventional point of view that regards such lack of purpose as totally negative; but with a poetic, visionary eye that can see meaning and even beauty in things and people that appear on the surface to be mundane, derelict, pointless or absurd.

Ostensibly the film is about a group of kids, mainly black, who spend their time goofing around, as kids do, until there's a tragic accident, and then a heroic rescue, and George (Donald Holden) is at the centre of both the accident and rescue. And George is already marked out as an exceptional character, not only because he has a weak skull and has to wear a helmet, but because pretty Nasia (Candace Evanofski) has switched her affections to him from an apparently more attractive companion. The children are surrounded by, and inter-mingle with, a mixed bunch of adults, the most prominent being a group of manual workers, who alternately josh each other and make would-be serious statements. However sceptical he or she might have been initially, by the end of the film the viewer accepts that George is exceptional and possibly a potential hero; but whether the world in general will ever recognise this is more doubtful; though the movie ends on a hopeful note.

Technically, the film is fine; with great photography, striking visuals, and effective music. Nevertheless, it is hard to follow, because of its rough edges and loose ends; it is probably best regarded not as a narrative, but more as a series of vignettes. From a conventional viewpoint, much of the acting by Green's amateur cast, is "bad", reminiscent of early dramatised documentaries by, say, Robert Flaherty; but this crudity and stiltedness add to the surreal feel of the movie, and give the characters a grittiness that smooth "good" acting might not. Of all the movies I've seen lately, this is one I'd like to see again, when an opportunity arises.

GEORGE WASHINTON / (2000) ***1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

"George Washington" details the drowsy lives of several preteen friends during their last summer of childhood, and it feels so accurate how the characters behave in the slumberous, low standard society. This is the summer where their first crushes arrive and flowering sexuality gives them confidence instead of confusion. It is a summer where the heat is consistent and the days seemingly last forever with nothing to do. The movie is about how a tragedy can forever change the course of individual lives so unexpectedly and abruptly.

The setting is North Carolina on an industrial landscape, where we meet several black kids between the ages of ten and thirteen. The preteens are Buddy (Curtis Cotton III), who has a crush on Nasia (Candace Evanofski). She leaves him a young fellow named George (Donald Holden). George is a very interesting character; the plates in his skull did not meet correctly, so he must wear a protective helmet to cover his delicate head. George saves a child from drowning, even though his head is never supposed to get wet. He then walks around with a cape on, feeling accomplished like a hero. Then an accident happens, leaving the remaining characters with a lot to think about.

There is not a lot of active conflict here, just an examination of behaviors of a variety of characters. They are not your typical characters, though; they are so brilliantly portrayed they feel like regular, ordinary people. The performances are extraordinary. The atmosphere and melancholy setting play large roles in the monotonous tone, comparable conceivably with the work of Terence Malick. There is an honest and true sentimentality here, like the director, David Gordon Greene, wanted to inject personal and thought-provoking ideas in his innovative style, which sometimes seems a bit preachy.

"George Washington" is one of the most under appreciated movies of 2000. As I look over the Academy Award nominees I am disturbed. For the first time in a long time the members chose box-office successes over movie quality. Among the movies missing from the ballot are "Human Resources," "The Virgin Suicides," and "George Washington." The film is one of the year's most poignant and heartbreaking. Everything that happens here is so lively, so convincing, so extraordinarily absorbing. It is a movie not to be missed by those looking for great underrated movies.