Things don’t always start out as you plan….

Moments of self-discovery are rarely if ever planned and that is so true here with filmmaker John Wilson now years removed from the success of his HBO show; How To With John Wilson.  Here with the History of Concrete we see the portrait of a creator trying to hold on what he had established for himself in a very tenuous business that found itself in the midst of upheaval during COVID and coming to grips with the delicate balance between success and happiness.

Following the finale of his TV series, filmmaker John Wilson looks to the bedrock of his beloved New York City for inspiration and structure. Concrete, the world’s most widely used building material, appears as an ever-present life force, and John sets out to make the definitive documentary on the matter. To tell this seemingly drab story, he decides to use the industry-approved Hallmark formula to increase his movie’s appeal. But his foundation soon begins to crumble—literally and figuratively—as he struggles to balance artistic freedom with the realities of the modern film industry.

We’ll be the first to admit that anyone who comes to The History of Concrete cold and don’t even have a passing connection to his TV show will come to this and quite frankly be pretty confused.

But that’s OK; honestly it’s kind of the point of the whole thing.  In his first feature outing, John Wilson takes us into ephemeral of how his mind works as he navigates his life from a seminar on how to write a Hallmark movie, to figuring out funding for an independent film while along the way ACTUALLY giving us some history of concrete while in a very weird way giving us a very personal story.

It’s hardly a perfect film, its very train of thought but it’s ultimately a portrait of an artist finding himself.  What it lacks in polish and even focus it makes up for in honesty, even though it’s a little misleading since this film is about so much more than just The History of Concrete.

While I’ll admit that Wilson’s style tends to fit a little bit better in the half hour sitcom format because this film was a solid 20-30 min too long but it’s a film that allows us to laugh at the creative process.  The highs and lows and everything else in between because putting yourself out there as a filmmaker and a creator like John Wilson does and has here in The History of Concrete is scary thing.  In this world of ever evolving needs of content and film making with the coldness and search for connection we look for in the concrete jungles of cities like New York, I take comfort in the fact that there are storytellers like John Wilson who won’t be afraid to figure it all out in front us to see, because at the end of it all that process is much more interesting than an actual history of concrete.