If you look around where you’re sitting, right now, what do you see? Maybe there are trinkets, lamps and a cup of pens on your desk. Maybe you see clothes slung over the laundry hamper or dishes in the sink. Maybe you’re sitting in a café, watching patrons line up for coffee. Perhaps you’re sitting at the park outside, watching your dogs or children run freely in the autumn sun. 

But you probably didn’t consider the concrete. 

Aside from a few choice places on this Earth that you could be right now, when your eyes scan your surroundings, they likely gloss over the gallons of concrete that glue this world, your moment and, by extension, each one of us, together. 

As comedian John Wilson notes in the first few minutes of his debut film The History of Concrete, making its wide theatrical debut Oct. 2, concrete is the most used material on the planet second only to water.

Though concrete, a composite of aggregate and fluid cement, is a crucial building block of our lives — our headstones, our stars on our Hollywood walk of fame and the thing that leaks and cracks all around us —- Wilson posits that we don’t know much about it. “It’s embarrassing to know so little about something that occupies so much of your visual environment,” he says in the film.

As a result, he makes a comedy documentary to educate viewers about concrete, and tries to sell it based on the pillars of writing he learned from a Hallmark movie workshop. 

What results in Wilson’s first feature-length documentary is a deeply moving love letter to humanity, the working class and unending passion in a world that sometimes feels too big. 

Concrete, not to be confused with cement (which is a water and sand mix), is deteriorating around us all the time. With his man-and-camera format, Wilson shows us the cracks, holes, stains and overall wear across the concrete of New York City and other unassuming areas around the country.

There’s a point in the film where we see some of the oldest concrete in the world, and it is revealed how flawed, degraded and filthy this material — that we feel comfortable assuming will survive long after us — truly is. We continue to build high rises, have brick-laying competitions, scrape off the gum when we can and have the world’s longest marathon on a New York sidewalk. Without fail or choice, we walk across, live in and trust concrete every day. And, where homeowners are responsible for the sidewalks outside of their houses, we clumsily repair it if we must.

At one point, we see an artist who preserves tattoos of the dead, removing them straight from their bodies and keeping them in frames — with materials he, too, is sure will last forever. Many viewers will find it disturbing. Many will find it beautiful. Most everyone will consider what exactly this scene, like many parts and people of the film, has to do with concrete, per se, but if a viewer sits with it long enough, they will find a connection for themselves.

Wilson is most known for his half-hour HBO comedy documentary series How To with John Wilson. In each episode of the show, he tackles a seemingly mundane part of life and attempts to give the audience a “How To” manual on the topic.

 His show guides audiences through tasks such as finding parking spots, cleaning their ears and keeping furniture pet-protected. In his own personal challenge of making the topics both comedic and insightful, he works hard to find meaning in what he encounters along the way. As a result, How To with John Wilson ends up deciding that the Mandela Effect and public restrooms are beacons of hope that humanity knows how to make the world a beautiful place. 

On its surface, How To is a show about a man who over-invests himself into uncovering rudimentary tasks, but it is truly a humorous exploration of being alive.

The History of Concrete, released by Magnolia Pictures and executive-produced by Oscar-nominee Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme) thus, becomes Wilson’s most ambitious work yet. Not only is he using his show’s format to create a full-length rendition of one of these episodes, he’s also going with the largest scale, the most universally relatable and dullest commodity he could lay his hands on.

But now, he no longer has the How To security blanket from which he can build this film. Instead, the B-Plot of Wilson trying hard to sell this documentary to distributors uncovers the struggles of balancing artistic freedom with the rare opportunity to actually be relevant in the film industry, knowing that his art (unlike most) has any chance of being seen.

A Hallmark movie, he learns, must be inspirational, only depicting trauma if the viewer learns from it. It must be aspirational, where characters can achieve a beautiful life if only they have the one thing they are missing. And most importantly, it must be escapist, not acknowledging or depicting the financial struggles that the viewing audience is certainly dealing with.

The History of Concrete quickly and completely derails some of these qualities, while whole-heartedly embracing others. As a result, Wilson turns concrete into symbols of poverty, prayer, power, passion, pollution and proof that we were here. The documentary is a touch too long, and it drags in places. But even still, it ends exactly where it needs to, as with each one of Wilson’s projects: with a message that being alive is beautiful.

The History of Concrete released in theaters Friday, Oct. 2. For showtimes visit Metro-cinemas.com.