The History of Concrete
Quality
Comedy
Documentary
Contemplative
Intimate
IndieThe review
John Wilson's feature debut takes the least glamorous subject imaginable — the gray composite beneath every sidewalk and overpass — and builds from it one of the year's most entertaining documentaries. Critics widely agree the film is simultaneously hilarious and unexpectedly poignant: a free-associative, essay-style chronicle in which a quest to make "the definitive concrete documentary" keeps colliding with funding troubles, eccentric strangers, and Wilson's own anxieties about legacy and permanence. Reviewers repeatedly single out the editing, which stitches absurd found footage and street-level New York observation into something that feels improvised but is clearly and carefully constructed.
The film's method is detour: what starts as a history of a building material drifts into conventions in Las Vegas, the ruins of Rome, a marathon run on concrete, and the musical ambitions of a liquor-store sample attendant, with the Hallmark-movie formula Wilson adopts as a structural gag giving the sprawl an unlikely spine. Critics describe the tone as half deadpan prank, half earnest anthropology, and note that beneath the comedy sits a genuine meditation on impermanence — cities crumble, careers fade, and art may be no more durable than sand.
The near-universal praise comes with one recurring caveat rather than a real split: this is, as several reviewers put it, essentially a feature-length episode of Wilson's TV series. Viewers charmed by that show's meandering, plotless rhythms will find it a worthy codo; those who want a more conventional or tightly argued documentary may find the digressions indulgent. But the looseness is widely defended as the point — the film is as much about the impossibility of staying on subject as it is about its subject.
Who it's for
Fans of *How to with John Wilson* (or Nathan Fielder's brand of deadpan civic comedy), lovers of personal essay documentaries, and anyone who enjoys finding profound strangeness in the mundane fabric of city life. It rewards patient viewers who delight in digression and dry, observational humor.
Who it's not for
Viewers expecting an actual informative documentary about concrete, or a tightly plotted film — the structure is intentionally loose and digressive. Those who found Wilson's TV series too slight or aimless won't be converted by a longer dose of the same sensibility. — not rated; mild language · themes of aging, decline, and mortality (light touch)
Birds of a feather...
- TVHow To with John Wilson (2020)
This documentary shares the same creative DNA: a free-associative structure where a seemingly mundane subject becomes a lens for mortality, impermanence, and personal reflection. The blend of deadpan humor, digression as form, and quiet pathos will feel instantly familiar and deeply satisfying to fans of the source.
95% - FilmCitizen Kane (1941)
Both films are formalist meditations on the impossibility of capturing a life or subject completely. Kane's fragmented, testimonial structure enacts the same theme as Wilson's digressive essay-film: that any attempt to contain a person or thing within a single narrative will fail, leaving only fragments and meaning found in the gaps.
78% - FilmWild Strawberries (1957)
Bergman's film shares the essay-like, associative structure and the meditative focus on aging, decline, and impermanence. Both treat the ordinary textures of life as vessels for philosophical inquiry, blending intellectual rigor with genuine emotional resonance rather than sentimentalizing mortality.
72% - TVLouie (2010)
Louie matches Wilson's tonal signature: deadpan humor braided with real pathos, and a digressive, unstable structure that mirrors its themes. Both works find existential weight in mundane observations and prioritize emotional truth over narrative comfort.
68% - FilmWings of Desire (1987)
Wings of Desire shares the associative, non-narrative approach and the belief that profound meaning lives in the seemingly ordinary — overheard monologues, city streets, small human moments. Both are contemplative works that ask viewers to surrender to rhythm rather than plot.
64% - TVSix Feet Under (2001)
Six Feet Under shares the core concern with impermanence and legacy, and its blend of gallows humor with melancholy echoes Wilson's absurd-meets-personal juxtaposition. Both ground existential questions in the mundane rhythms of daily life.
58% - TVThe Wonder Years (1988)
The Wonder Years elevates the mundane into material for meditations on memory, loss, and legacy. Its wistful but unsentimental tone and its insistence that life resists tidy resolution align with the source's acceptance of impermanence.
52%