What Goes Up

Set in 1986, director/co-writer Jonathan Glatzer's What Goes Up finds New York newspaper columnist Campbell Babbitt (Steve Coogan) dispatched by his editor to Concord, NH, to write a piece about hometown schoolteacher and first civilian astronaut Christa McAuliffe, chosen to travel aboard the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger. Instead, Babbitt finds himself drawn to a gaggle of self-described young “rejects” (including Olivia Thirlby as the goth-lite Tess and Hilary Duff as reputed slut Lucy) who are mourning the apparent suicide of their own beloved teacher, a man whom Campbell knew in college long ago. And there's more: Babbitt has written a series of columns about a poor woman whose son was murdered that contains major untruths (although that doesn't stop him from being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize). Unfortunately, Babbitt is mendacious, ethically-challenged, and unlikeable, while the acting by Thirlby and Duff is little better than the amateurs in the high school musical being produced to honor McAuliffe. Optional. (S. Graham)