- A group of children, in a depressed small town, band together to cover up a tragic mistake one summer.
- Set in a small town in North Carolina, George Washington is the story of a tight-knit multi-racial group of working-class kids caught in a tragic lie. After a twelve-year-old girl breaks up with her boyfriend for a sensitive, deeply introspective thirteen-year-old boy named George, a bizarre series of events and an innocent cover-up launches their insular group on individual quests for redemption.—Anonymous
- The story of four young teenagers who spend their summer days unsupervised in the deep south. One day when tragedy occurs, they each come to terms with the resultant grief and guilt in different ways, forcing them to enter an adult world they do not yet completely understand.—Jonathan Beebe <jrbeebe@midway.uchicago.edu>
- Set in the landscape of a rural Southern town, George Washington is a stunning portrait of how a group of young kids come to grips with a hard world of choices and consequences. During an innocent game in an abandoned amusement park, a member of the group dies. Narrated by one of the children, the film follows the kids as they struggle to balance their own ambitions and relationships against a tragic lie.—Kelly Williams
- This is a story about some experiences of children in a rural, economically depressed southern town in the United States. George, Buddy, Vernon and Sonya are teens and tweens that hang out together, exploring and playing among the ruins of industrial sites. Vernon finds a leather-bound journal in the debris in one building.
The film starts with Buddy and his girlfriend Nasia in a cubby at church, as she breaks up with him. Later, with the other kids playing on a concrete structure nearby, Nasia and George have a conversation.
George's uncle Damascus, who has a violence-inducing fear of dogs, quits his job at the train yard over complaints that the company does nothing to curb the threat of wild dogs in the area.
George finds a dog sitting in some feces. He tries to clean it up and take care of it.
Among the remaining workers at the train-yard are Euless, a preachy health nut, and Rico, the son of the train-yard owner. Near where they are having lunch is Rico's moped and a broken down station wagon. Sonya mounts the bike, and Vernon sits on the car, taunting Rico, who comes over and gives him a noogie. Rico bans Sonya from touching his bike, while he explicitly allows the boys to do so, saying that she already stole one car.
Euless and Buddy have a catching-up conversation about how Buddy's mom has trouble sleeping at night. He sings the theme to "Blazing Saddles" to her at night to help her nod off.
In a house, there are five girls, including Nasia, and an older friend Denise, talking about wanting to get pregnant and rating the local guys. Nasia says there's nobody datable in this town.
Vernon and Buddy are sitting on Buddy's porch, and Buddy is upset that Nasia dumped him, and thinks she's going after George.
Next day, Euless talks to George, telling him his uncle quit yesterday. Rico likes his dog, but says that Damascus would kill it, then recounts a story of Damascus whipping a cat to death.
Vernon comes over to where the girls are to talk to Nasia about breaking up with Buddy. She says she broke up with him because he's immature. She explicitly states her intent to go after George.
George sneaks his dog into his back yard while Damascus is chopping wood.
At an abandoned church, Buddy dons a dinosaur mask and recites something old and religious sounding. Rico applauds, asking if that was Shakespeare or the Bible. They go for a walk, talking about the town, and Nasia. Rico recounts being dumped by a white girl for someone poor, fat, and ugly. Buddy says he likes his moms friends.
We see George using a dry powder shampoo, because of his head condition. An infant's "soft spot" is the anterior fontanel, a diamond-shaped area that, since the brain grows faster than bone, allows for human head development, acting as an expansion joint for the frontal and parietal bones. Eventually, that spot and the other sutures surrounding the cranial plates would ossify, or harden into bone. If this doesn't happen, it's called cleidocranial dysostosis. It's often accompanied by many other symptoms, but in George's case, seems to have only affected his skull development. In voiceover, Nasia tells us that George's brain gets irritated if he scratches his head or gets it wet. He carries and often wears a football helmet to protect himself.
At night, George and his sister Whitney are in bed. Damascus is in a bath, and Aunt Ruth is asking him to remember the first time they made love to the song that's playing. He asks why she always sounds like she's going to cry. In bed, we learn that their mom died when Whitney was one year old.
In church, George and Buddy are chatting about being baptized, and we see a flashback to when George got baptized in the local river. Buddy gets George's assurance that he's not into Nasia.
At the public pool, Sonya, Vernon, Buddy, and another boy, Tyler, are playing, while George dangles his feet or scores them on their dives. Tyler is wearing a neck brace, that he said was from hitting a wall while skateboarding. He also says he has "TMJ's disease," or Temporomandibular Joint Disorder.
In the locker room, Vernon mocks George's head issue, saying he swells up like an expanding dinosaur bath toy if he gets wet.
The kids are playing by an abandoned water wheel, by a river. Sonya is poking poop with a stick, and smearing it on the concrete wall. The other kids tell her to stop, and she ends up getting some on Vernon's shirt. They all go to the bathroom to clean up. Buddy shows George his new wrestling uniform, and says it's too big for him. After urinating, Buddy pantses Vernon, who crawls under a stall to get him back. George pulls Buddy up in a headlock. Buddy pushes George into a wall. George's head, with his helmet on, bangs against it. Everyone is sorry, and calms down for a second. Then George starts things up again by pushing Buddy into Vernon, who pushes him to Sonya, who pushes him back to George. All the while, Buddy's sneakers are squeaking on the wet floor. George pushes him back to Vernon, and Buddy slips and falls, smacking his head on the floor. Buddy says he has a headache, and asks them to call his mom. Then he goes into a stall, picks up a stick, starts beating the wall and yelling, as the blood in his brain leaks out the back of his head. He screams in pain, before collapsing to the floor, dead.
Sonya, Vernon, and George are stunned, and are flailing in their minds, trying to think of what to do next. George feels responsible for Buddy's death.
The kids take a cab, with their dead friend in his dino mask, to an abandoned part of town. They lay him in the corner of a building and cover him in a piece of carpet. Outside, George is vomiting.
A title card says it's now the the first of July.
Nasia and George are visiting his dog. He says he feeds the dog gummy bears. Nasia says that's why the dog is so skinny.
We see a missing person sign for Buddy, saying that he was last seen on the 18th, meaning he's been missing and dead for 12 days. Rico tries, unsuccessfully, to get people to come to a union meeting.
On top of a building, Nasia and George talk. She says she thinks Buddy ran away because he has a crush on her. George says she has nice hands.
Sonya finds Vernon sitting in the bathroom where Buddy died. He says some men came by his house asking about Buddy. He's worried about going to prison. He wishes he had his own tropical island, or any way to just get out of there, and is upset that Sonya doesn't show any emotion.
George comes home and the dog is gone. He stays up all night listening to Damascus chop wood. He goes for a walk, and Nasia narrates about how she wouldn't have suspected that George knew what he knew about Buddy at that point.
George wanders down to the pool, and sees Tyler floating, face down, with nobody around. He makes his way in, and dives in to rescue him. He gets Tyler to safety before his head condition endangers his life.
At the hospital, the doctor says he'll be ok as the swelling goes down. Damascus says he's stupid, and that he should have known better, based on what happened at his baptism. George says he just wanted to save Tyler. Damascus says he makes him sick.
Tylers mom shows up at George's to say thank you for George saving Tyler's life. Aunt Ruth is just tired.
The next day, Aunt Ruth is reading a news article to George about his heroism. George asks why they have a picture of him in his underwear, and his aunt says that's how they found him. He remembers not wanting to get his pants wet.
All the kids take turns being questioned by the police about Buddy's disappearance.
George goes to visit his dad in prison, to tell him that he believes that what happened to put him there was an accident, and that he loves him. The father doesn't react. Then George goes to where they left Buddy's body, and brings him to the river where George was baptized, performs a posthumous baptism, and lets Buddy's body float away.
After a church service, Denise hops on Ricos bike, and they go make out by the river. Looking over the edge, she says he smells bad, then they notice Buddy's body. Voiceover by Nasia says that they found him in a peaceful place, and that the water has washed his hands.
Nasia calls George as he's looking through Buddy's things. She invites him over. He says they shouldn't talk anymore, because he hasn't got anything to say. Then he's doing push-ups, as Nasia tells us he was always going to be a hero. He wears his helmet, Buddy's wrestling uniform, and a towel as a cape, and directs traffic. Rico tells George that he respects him, and asks if he can join. Then they're both directing traffic.
Damascus is handling scraps of George's dog. George has a clipboard, and is making a tally of safety violations in the backyard.
We see a preacher at Buddy's, and Nasia tells us that Buddy's mom never let the preacher come inside.
George runs fire drills on his sister, with her full participation.
Vernon and Sonya are talking by the water, about how George isn't talking to anyone anymore. Vernon tells a story about how Buddy's mom fed him one time when she saw he was hungry, knowing that would mean less for her and Buddy. Sonya asks him to keep a secret, and says she's not a good person, and doesn't think nice thoughts. Vernon says they're all just a little screwed up. She says she didn't cry when Buddy died, and Vernon says that's just how she deals. She says she doesn't have much to look forward to. They make a pact of sorts to escape the town together. They try to steal that station wagon. Sonya distracts boss Rice, and when he runs after her, Vernon tries to start the engine.
Uncle Damascus comes in to have a chat with George about the dog. Whitney let slip that it was there, and Damascus killed it, because he had an experience as a child when a dog wouldn't stop humping him, and he's had a violent fear and hatred of them ever since. Damascus says he's sorry. In voiceover, Nasia tells us that Damascus knew that George's helmet hurt his head, so he made a hat for George out of his dog's fur and a raccoon tail.
At the town Fourth of July parade, George wanted to march, because he sees himself as a hero. Afterwards, he finds he guy who marched as Uncle Sam, and tells him that he was his favorite.
George is sitting by a gas station. Nasia tells him there are people looking for him. Then she sits with him, and they chat. She says she hopes he lives forever.
George is walking, and sees a car wreck, where a station wagon had flipped over a ledge and burned. Inside, he finds the journal that Vernon had found earlier. In voiceover, we learn that Vernon and Sonya finally stole a car, and Sonya flipped it on the way out of town, almost killing them both. Nasia stops to tie her shoes, and sees Sonya and Vernon limping down the railroad tracks. George goes looking for them. A news crew is interviewing locals next to the wreck. George runs until he is exhausted, and is caught up to by a news crew.
He gets interviewed, and lists as his heroes: The man that invented the steam shovel Chubby Checker The Untouchables Dick Allen World Be Free Great Wall of China Uncle Sam The President of the United States
He lists as the attributes of a hero: Wise Strong Very talented Should have a list of dangerous and poisonous things.
What makes George a hero? He likes to save people's lives.
He comes across the train-yard workers. Euless asks where his other friends are, because they're going to miss the fireworks. He says his friends are dead, that they all got killed in a train wreck. Rico asks what he's talking about and George says "All I know is I want to be the strongest man in the world sometimes." Rico says "Well, there you go," and George walks away.
Nasia says we want families who love us, because friends go away.
Sonya goes, by herself, to the police station, to tell them what happened to Buddy. Vernon is on a train, ostensibly heading out of town, with bandages on his head and neck. The film ends with Nasia saying that George talked to God and knew the future. George gets his picture taken, all dressed up.
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