Particle.news
Download on the App Store

At Sundance, John Wilson’s The History of Concrete Draws Warm Early Reviews

The feature brings his TV-born sensibility to festival scale with wry humor across reflective detours.

Overview

  • The 101-minute documentary premiered during Sundance’s opening days as Wilson’s first feature film.
  • Critics say it often feels like a feature-length How To with John Wilson, retaining his lo-fi visuals, dry narration, and digressive structure.
  • Concrete serves as a lens for themes of urban infrastructure, impermanence, and mortality, launching from a Hallmark-movie seminar attended during the 2023 WGA strike.
  • Coverage details financing struggles and a creative lull as Wilson amassed roughly 140 hours of footage and undertook research trips from Rome to U.S. locations and industry conventions.
  • Early reactions praise the humor and idiosyncratic voice, with several reviews noting stretches that meander or lose momentum, and highlighting Jack Macco as a recurring emotional thread.