FARMINGTON, Pa. — The crushed stone along the quiet pathways here at the “Great Meadow” where Fort Necessity sits has always held wonder to me. Here is where 22-year-old George Washington, a brash, sometimes headstrong, but always ambitious young man trying to figure out his fate, suffered the first and only military surrender of his lifetime.

On the big screen, I’ve always imagined that the series of events that led to this moment, beginning with his run-in with the French Captain Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in present day Erie, to being shot point blank in Butler, to accidentally starting the French and Indian War in Jumonville Glen, would look vivid and stark — that they would show a man on his way to greatness despite failures along the way.