Of our crumbling institutions, is concrete one of the few remaining pillars of society we can trust? Unfortunately, John Wilson does not seek to answer this question. Perhaps that is not the point of The History of Concrete, but then, I'd argue, what is?

Documentary films provide an outlet to communicate, observe, explore, or understand a part of human nature and our existence, however grand or small that may be. Concrete is not found in nature, mined, or farmed. It was created by human hands and thus reveals something about us: a desire to build and industrialize, a continual quest for improvement, and our unending battle against entropy.

While promising a film about concrete, Wilson winds up rather uninterested in his chosen subject, instead using it as a launching pad for other tangents and anecdotes, much in the form of his HBO series How to with John Wilson. But unlike the series, a feature-length documentary requires more structure and thematic coherence. Over its runtime, The History of Concrete loses focus from the human interest stories of its titular subject toward more loosely related and unaffiliated stories.

These range from the bizarre (Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence race), quirky (GumBusters), commercial (World of Concrete), to the queasy (tattoo preservation, please don't remind me). Wilson handles them all masterfully with his fountain of footage paired with the hilarious and unassumingly insightful narration that has become his hallmark (pun intended).

There is much to love in the first half of The History of Concrete. It remains most true to exploring the concrete world we all inhabit. The film falters when it feels more like deleted scenes from How to, as the basis for the movie chips away. In the end, it becomes a metadocumentary about the production process of the very film you're watching and the tragedy and resilience of a bar musician experiencing heartbreaking loss. It's an affecting story, and one I understand the impulse to include, but completely lacks a connection to concrete. There's no rebar and the documentary's structure collapses.

Instead, it lumbers to a conclusion with callbacks to the Hallmark and DMX stories featured earlier in the documentary. They're given greater significance than they deserve, with my sneaking suspicion it was a post-production creation, cleverly manufactured through voiceover and intentionally set up for a payoff that feels more improvised than it was in reality.

But I concede that disappointment plays a role in my feelings. I was excited for an abstract and winding documentary about capital “C” concrete. This is not that. It is How To(.0). Nevertheless, there is beauty, humor, and weirdness in our world to behold, and very likely the funniest documentary cameos I have ever seen.

Walking through our city since History, I have given much greater thought to its concrete sidewalks and gum splotches that cover D.C. than before. I wish the movie had done more to inspire that feeling of wonder for the mundanity, rather than the formula documentary this turned out to be.

Ben Cote is the co-editor-in-chief and chief film critic of The Film Current.