The Feeling of Falling Upwards , a 50-minute documentary directed by the band’s own Michael Clifford alongside Andy DeLuca, is not a traditional "making of" feature. It’s a confessional booth. It’s a therapy session. It’s a scrapbook of anxiety, triumph, and the strange vertigo of achieving everything you dreamed of, only to realize you’re not sure who you are anymore. The title itself is a paradox. Falling upwards suggests a contradiction—a descent that looks like ascent. For 5SOS, that feeling is deeply familiar.
The answer, according to 5 Seconds of Summer, is that you don’t stop falling. You just learn to recognize the feeling. You name it. You write a song about it. And then, you fall upwards again, together. 5 Seconds of Summer - The Feeling of Falling Up...
In a career defined by sharp left turns—from pop-punk pranksters to arena-rock heartthrobs to synth-pop experimentalists—5 Seconds of Summer have never stood still. But with their fifth studio album, 5SOS5 (pronounced “Five Seconds of Summer five”), and its companion documentary The Feeling of Falling Upwards , the band did something they had never quite allowed themselves to do before: they stopped running. The Feeling of Falling Upwards , a 50-minute
The “falling upwards” motif appears literally: upside-down shots of the band walking on ceilings, floating in swimming pools, drifting through zero-gravity simulators. It’s a visual metaphor for the pandemic-era feeling of time slipping sideways. They are successful, yes, but they are also untethered. In an era of manufactured pop docs—polished, approved, and drained of friction— The Feeling of Falling Upwards feels radical because it’s uncomfortable. The band members cry on camera. They admit to resenting each other. They talk about wanting to quit. They laugh at their own younger selves with a tenderness that borders on grief. It’s a scrapbook of anxiety, triumph, and the
For fans who grew up with 5SOS—who were teenagers when “She Looks So Perfect” dropped and are now navigating their own 20-something crises—the documentary is a mirror. It asks: What does it mean to keep going when the dream comes true and still feels like a struggle?
Released in September 2022, 5SOS5 was a record born from chaos. Written and recorded in the eye of the COVID-19 pandemic, the album found Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood, and Ashton Irwin scattered across the globe, separated from each other and the roar of the crowd for the first time in a decade. The result was their most mature, sonically diverse, and emotionally raw work to date. But to truly understand the album, you have to watch the film.