Relationships are hard. Friends, family, lovers, acquaintances — none of it comes without effort on both sides. "People think that love is supposed to be this magical thing," says Omar Rodríguez-López in the documentary Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird. "No. It's like any other thing in life. You have to work at it constantly. You have to communicate."
Chronicling the lifelong and often turbulent creative relationship between Rodríguez-López and frequent bandmate Cedric Bixler-Zavala, the film goes beyond the old "band as marriage" cliché. Using reams of footage shot by Rodríguez-López since he was a child, with him and Bixler-Zavala providing voiceovers, director Nicolas Jack Davies — who's made music docs on everyone from Take That to Gorillaz — digs deep into the musicians' clear love and admiration for one another.
Yet their relationship hasn't always been an easy one. Friends since recognizing one another as fellow outsiders in El Paso, TX's primarily white punk rock scene, they made a pact in the early days of the duo's first band, At the Drive-In, to prioritize friendship over career — a promise reflected in the film's subtitle. Yet, the band's explosive success put those two concepts at odds. With tensions worsened by frequent drug use, At the Drive-In imploded and splintered into two new groups: Sparta, featuring Jim Ward, Paul Hinojos and Tony Hajjar, and the Mars Volta, anchored by Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala.
The Mars Volta freed the two of expectations and provided the ideal vehicle for Rodríguez-López's boundless creativity, but their success was haunted by the overdose death of sound manipulator Jeremy Ward. Bixler-Zavala eventually turned to Scientology to help deal with his grief, but after the organization drove a wedge between the two, convincing the singer that his creative partner was a "suppressive person," Bixler-Zavala called it quits.
If This Gets Weird is a treat for At the Drive-In and Mars Volta fans, featuring plenty of behind-the-scenes footage, including the recording of ATDI's seminal swan song Relationship of Command. But the film isn't designed as hagiography or an opportunity to relitigate ATDI's break-up.
Still, Ward in particular draws the duo's ire, both in his disregard for Rodríguez-López's mental health in At the Drive-In's final days and the band's decision to fire him from their reunion. Yet even as the other creative force in ATDI, the guitarist's side of the story is missing here. Despite the film's title, it's hard to shake the feeling that this is ultimately Rodríguez-López's version of the story — it's his footage after all. We might hear Bixler-Zavala's take, but we're seeing things from Rodríguez-López perspective.
However slanted it might be, the two do appear to be on the same page in their contemporary narration. The film's final third, where they touch on their relationships with their partners while repairing their own connection, rather than the music that they've made together, provides the most emotionally moving portion. By finding a through-line outside of the music, Davies elevates the movie beyond a blow-by-blow of their careers, humanizing two of the 21st century's most talented rock outsiders.