'What Goes Up' review

Hilary Duff (Credit: Nasser Entertainment)

Assigned to New Hampshire in 1986 to cover local teacher Christa McAuliffe’s voyage on the Challenger shuttle, New York newspaper reporter Campbell (Steve Coogan) becomes wrapped up in the lives of high school students while mourning the loss of the kids' favorite teacher and his best friend, Sam, who recently committed suicide.

The buzz: Sheesh, that’s a loaded drama if there ever was one, and a story that doesn’t necessarily seem suited to funnyman Coogan, comedian Molly Shannon (as Sam’s ex-fiance) and dramatic lightweight Hilary Duff (as a student who comes onto Campbell). Olivia Thirlby and a very shell-shocked Josh Peck also star in this somber tale, the feature debut for director/co-writer Jonathan Glatzer.

The verdict: “What Goes Up” is muted and never moving, instead finding no insight while dragging its feet along a variety of forced quirks (Peck’s character masturbates to the sight of the principal’s wife breastfeeding; a disabled student initiates a context-free sexual relationship to reveal, um, something about people with disabilities' sexual activity). Campbell’s fixation on people’s ascension from average to hero status doesn’t go anywhere, nor does the notion of Sam’s class unified as a band of outsiders. What’s so unique about these kids, and what did teach do to bring them together?

Did you know? Unable to cope after Sam’s wake, the students steal his coffin and leave it resting on a frozen lake. Problem solved!

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