While searching for a new project, comic documentarian John Wilson dithered and dallied his way into The History of Concrete, a feature doc that feels—perhaps intentionally—like an unformed thing. Appreciating such meta elements (ostensibly inspired by a Hallmark movie writing seminar he attended, Wilson documents his attempt to pitch a doc on concrete using similar principles) will have to carry you a long way, because on the surface, there isn’t much here. There are some mildly amusing observations about human behavior, presumably of the sort Wilson offered on his HBO series How to with John Wilson, as well as on-camera interviews with a series of real-life American “characters.” Some of these come awfully close to punching down, while the most compelling (including a guy who has a business preserving the tattoos—skin and all—of deceased loved ones) are only tangentially related to either Hallmark movies or the concrete industry. Again, this may serve the point Wilson means to make about the discursiveness of the documentary creative process. I guess I would have preferred a creative documentary instead.
(11/9/2026)
