‘The History of Concrete’ Brings John Wilson’s Wry, Thoughtful Comedy to Feature Length
Fans of ‘How To with John Wilson’ won’t mind what’s basically a 100-minute episode.
How to With John Wilson was one of the shows I’d heard constantly praised over the past decade but never sat down to watch because, even though I thought I’d enjoy it (Nathan Fielder is one of the show’s producers, and I love his stuff), there’s just too much TV these days. However, with the arrival of John Wilson’s first feature, The History of Concrete, I figured I’d sit down to watch the first two episodes, “Small Talk” and “Scaffolding.” And they were great! The funny, awkward approach of Wilson’s narration combined with the thoughtful conflict between individuality and homogenization made for a unique documentary comedy. Some TV premises can’t make the transition to feature length, but Wilson has no issue making concrete—and all the thematic, tangential threads that come with it—as potent as his 30-minute episodes.
Since his show went off the air after three seasons, John Wilson has been trying to get a feature film off the ground. The subject he wants to tackle: concrete. Of course, this is already a tongue-in-cheek joke—trying to convince a bunch of money people that they should fund a documentary on a seemingly boring topic. But as with Wilson’s style, concrete is both subject and inspiration, serving literal points like how it’s made, the environmental cost, the capitalist incentives, its durability, etc., as well as tangents like a 3,100-mile marathon around the same sidewalk of New York City or a class on how to make Hallmark movies. Through these observations, we get a similar tension to an episode like “Scaffolding,” where the underlying worry is how to create anything unique in a world that always looks to standardize and homogenize.
I’d strongly recommend watching an episode of How To with John Wilson before checking out the movie because you’ll know immediately if you’re on his wavelength. Despite the timidity in Wilson’s voice and narration, he has a strong, immediate identity to his comedy and observations. No one else is really doing documentary like him (his weird approach is probably closest to Fielder, but they’re not imitations of each other), and the way he casually sprawls into new topics feels consciously done against popular trends in documentary. He even admits as much when he points out a funding offer for him to do a documentary as long as it’s about a popular music artist and fits the same kind of legacy-burnishing approach that rarely reveals any fresh insights.
It’s not a subtle connection between concrete as permanently impermanent construction material and the ephemera of content creation, with the components of a Hallmark movie or a music documentary being as formulaic as what goes into a bag of concrete. If it’s cheaper and easier to make everything the same, then what does an artist do? How do you fund a movie or protect a park or do anything to stand against an encroaching force that has money and power on its side? It’s a testament to Wilson’s skill that he can take such a benign topic and wring such pathos from it without ever losing his comic wit or self-deprecating awkwardness.
But artists can fall into patterns too, and it’s here where I wish Wilson stretched himself a bit. On the one hand, he proves that his approach can work at 30 minutes or 100 minutes, and that’s an accomplishment in its own right. But a feature is a bigger canvas, and it rarely feels like Wilson is taking full advantage of that. It’s a longer episode of How To, but is quantity the only step forward for his artistry? Sameness is something that can affect not only construction and Hallmark movies, but individuals as well. Perhaps this is how Wilson sees his work—like concrete in that it’s unassuming and reliable—but I suspect he’s aiming for something more.
That being said, the dry title belies how funny and insightful the whole piece is, and if you’re a fan of Wilson’s show, then his first feature should bowl you over with his humor and observations. While some audience members may be as hesitant as potential backers when hearing “It’s about the history of concrete,” you’ll be hard-pressed to find a documentary feature as unique as this one this year. Is concrete a riveting subject? In the hands of John Wilson: absolutely.
The History of Concrete opens in New York on September 18 and in Los Angeles on September 25.
Over at Decoding Everything, I reviewed the new Resident Evil movie:
Matt Goldberg
And earlier this week, I reviewed The Weight. Both films open in theaters this weekend.
Matt Goldberg
