Downfalls High

Directed by Colson Baker, better known as Machine Gun Kelly, together with Mod Sun, this forty-nine minute musical turns the album Tickets to My Downfall into a high school story. The bond between the withdrawn Fenix and the popular Scarlett moves forward song by song. It went out in January 2021, first as a live stream and then free on YouTube days later, with Sydney Sweeney and Chase Hudson in the leads and appearances from Blackbear and Travis Barker. The structure is not a screenplay in the usual sense but music video logic extended: scenes begin and end at track boundaries. As a document of pop punk's 2020 return it holds up, though its dramatic weight is entirely borrowed from the songs. Who it's for: listeners who already know the album and want to see what it looks like. Who it's not for: anyone after character depth or a story that stands on its own; the film takes the shape of a track list.