Like a movie tie-in, John Wilson’s debut documentary feature, The History of Concrete, picks up immediately where his HBO series How To with John Wilson left off after three seasons. An elevated public profile does not lead to the next bigger, better project. Instead it’s illustrated via Wilson stumbling upon an empty bag of weed featuring an unauthorized branding of his likeness. The full-sized crew afforded by his show now absent, Wilson is forced back to his roots, filming the day-to-day scenes of New York City life solo.
After futile attempts to enter the commercial world as a freelancer, Wilson surveys his depressing wall calendar with only “Slurpee Day” earmarked and decides to pivot toward something with a greater promise of financial stability. And so he attends a seminar on how to write Hallmark movies. It’s an enlightening window into the well-oiled machine that cranks out these paint-by-number romances. The narrative rules for what’s presented in the seminar as either “in” or “out” range from evolving to hard and fast. Girl bosses are no longer in—that trope got pushed too far. Mentioning Jesus is a consistent no-go, despite these mostly being Christmas movies. And audiences will always hate an interrupted first kiss between romantic leads, so don’t do it. It’s clear that Wilson, with his self-described “documentary memoir” style, is not actually going to pivot to a fruitful second act making these movies. But the visibility of this manufactured conceit doesn’t matter, and recalls elements of Charlie Shackleton’s Zodiac Killer Project from last year’s Sundance. Both are seemingly more constructed than meets the eye, and both look at genres—in Hallmark movies and true crime—with codified narrative tropes that are consumed by voracious audiences.
The Hallmark seminar occupies much of Concrete‘s extended prologue before an eponymous subject takes center stage. Fans of Wilson’s work won’t be surprised to learn that this is not some Ken Burns-like comprehensive study of the grey construction material, but rather acts as a jumping-off point for a digressive journey covering a great many topics and traveling to a number of locations. Despite a decade-plus spent fine-tuning this filmmaking mode, Wilson has a hard time conveying what the film might be—mostly because he doesn’t know yet—on Zoom calls with prospective producers and anonymous industry types. These Zooms highlight Wilson’s bumbling, inarticulate personality in a self-deprecating manner and illustrate how he forever feels out-of-place in an industry increasingly driven by an adherence to sure things.
But Wilson, somehow, scrapes together funding and promptly heads overseas to Rome, an ancient city full of concrete structures that has withstood the test of time, unlike the concrete he encounters daily in New York City—a constant state of disrepair. Without much of a plan, he asks confused, suspicious police officers and construction workers about this famed secret mixture. Back in New York with no answers, his voiceover announces that the modest production budget has been entirely blown on the trip. Traveling to Rome to set up a single voiceover joke is a very funny bit, one that recalls Norm Macdonald at his best, or Greta Gerwig’s ill-conceived trip to Paris in Frances Ha.
At 101 minutes, The History of Concrete compacts its ideas invigoratingly. Wilson’s excitement is infectious as he pauses to mention, via voiceover, some bizarre factoid he’s discovered. For instance: did you know that ATMs in NYC aren’t allowed to touch the sidewalk and so must float above it? Wilson worked as a private investigator post-college, and you feel a shaggy Long Goodbye energy in The History of Concrete as Wilson is content to follow leads down unrelated rabbit holes. (The Long Goodbye even features what might be the most John Wilson-esque image he didn’t record, when the camera zooms past Marlow onto two dogs shagging on a Mexican street.)
A single review can’t possibly encompass all that The History of Concrete touches upon. There’s a brief trip to Bellefontaine, Ohio, which houses two eyebrow-raising landmarks: the nation’s first-ever concrete paved road and the state’s highest point. There’s a trip to a concrete convention in Louisiana, participants of which discuss how the colonization of the moon and Mars will require lots of concrete. How will they get tons and tons of this dense construction material to the bases? There’s even a segment involving the preservation of dead human skin with tattoos. Los Angeles is visited and described as having a “pornographic relationship with concrete.” One recurring thread involving NIMBY activism in New York City feels underdeveloped. It’s simply too complex an issue to be properly broken down in these shortened segments. However, it does grant us footage of a character whose general demeanor and mannerisms are tailor-made to be featured in a John Wilson work: former New York mayor Eric Adams.
It’s worth noting that Wilson’s skills as a cinematographer have improved through the years—more considered compositions of cityscapes are present here. There are also more complex editing jokes, beyond ones that simply juxtapose his voiceover with a corresponding image captured from the streets of New York. One of the best sequences has a former Department of Transportation head explain to Wilson that the Brooklyn Queens Expressway’s (BQE) one-of-a-kind triple cantilever is a ticking time bomb. The mostly unsupported concrete structure can’t continue to be sustained by patchwork fixes. The film then immediately cuts, supplemented by ominous music, to Wilson traveling the dangerous pathway, a hilarious gag that draws to mind the Christopher Walken driving sequence in Annie Hall.
In many respects, The History of Concrete plays like three How To with John Wilson episodes combined into one package. The series would often devote extended stretches to characters Wilson met in public, and in History that role is occupied by Jack Macco, who the director meets in a grocery store where Macco hands out liquor samples. At night, he rocks out as the frontman of a few different metal bands. The inclusion of Macco can begin to feel like a perplexing digression, even by Wilson standards, but by the end of the film, his role is revealed as a sly, elaborately constructed jab at what the film industry informs the director, in the opening act, is needed for a viable, commercial documentary feature. To say more would be to spoil, and while this setup and payoff is not entirely successful, Wilson’s attempt to craft something more ambitious and complicated should be applauded. And it does lead to a comical hip-hop needle drop over the credits à la Evanescence’s role in Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal.
For those willing to meet Wilson on his wavelength, The History of Concrete is a joyous ride full of his now-trademark detours and persistent, underlying sadness at both the state of New York (his first and true love) and, on a secondary scale, the world at large. While there is a lingering frustration prevalent throughout, directed at targets like AI or a film industry committed to a pervasive safeness, the mere fact of this project’s existence and subsequent programming at a prestigious festival serves as a triumph in its own way.
The History of Concrete premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.