4/5 What is Up?
  by Marina
This is a great movie the plot is very different yet confusing but all the actors are great.It the mess up life of teens but in a realist hippie style.This movie no way a comedy and not a very happy movie.But its just a good watch if you like to think outside the box!

4/5 what goes up
  by terry e.chandler,jr. (woodstock,ga. u.s.a.)
don't get up from your seat or you'll be confused!after it's over then the whole movie makes sense!way to go Hilary duff great acting!

3/5 Coogan Good, Pretentious Indie Filmmakers Bad
  by Nina
I think that its really funny that some reviewers for this film are so offended by the people who didn't "get it" and accuse them of wanting to be "spoon fed". How these reviewers can overlook the glaring problems with this movie I'll never know. They perceive the schizophrenic plot as a challenge to the normal Hollywood formulas. But if you're an indie fan you know that a film can be challenging and still comprehensible.

I enjoyed the film because of all the things that are wrong with it. Its scatterbrained plot, confusing narrative and wandering focus make me strive to glean the movie wheat from the movie chaff.

Despite the director's best efforts to overwhelm the movie with meaning about the mythology of heroes, I thought the actors' performances were stand-out. Steve Coogan takes on another unlikeable character and strives to make him tolerable, which is commendable, but he is never given clear dominion over the film. In an apparent effort to pander to the teen audience, his character (the lead), is upstaged time and again by the misfits from the shed. The teens are art class cliches that we have seen a dozen times but the actors make the most of their lot and if you haven't seen Freaks and Geeks, My So Called Life or any Lifetime movie where a girl is "too young" for something then you won't care.

The film is shot beautifully so it's even sadder when it narratively starts a death spiral. And as it crashes and burns we finally see the parallel between the Challenger tragedy and this movie. The Challenger was destroyed and this movie self-destructs. I guess the heroes are us, for watching it.

5/5 Excellent film...Hilary Duff is the greatest!
  by R. Bible, Jr.
What Goes Up is a film that far exceeded my expectations for any new upcoming Hilary Duff films. She beautifully plays a character that seems to be searching for something to fill a gap that has been placed in her life by the death of someone she and her friends loved and worshipped. This movie seems to leave the Hollywood mold behind (very thankfully!) and shows us just how realistic life is, and how it's not perfect at all like most movies would try to make it seem. The other actors are fantastic as well, especially Olivia Thirlby and Steve Coogan.

This movie is highly recommended and I really loved it. Very fantastic film for our times.


5/5 Brilliantly different
  by Ouija (Las Vegas, NV USA)
I was fortunate to see this film at the Los Angeles premiere, and I thought it was outstanding. The characters here are real, and that means unglamorous. But isn't that what real life is? Steve Coogan does a spot-on job as Campbell Babbitt, a departure from the roles we've come to expect from him. But a more dramatic turn suits him well. Hilary Duff, Olivia Thirlby and Josh Peck were excellent, bringing their flawed characters to life in a very real and believable way.

For me, some of the supporting cast members particularly stood out, especially Max Hoffman (Dustin's son) as Fenster and "twins" Ingrid Nilson and Andrea Brooks. These are real people. Nilson especially was just dynamite, and I found myself wishing that there would have been time to explore these characters a bit deeper.

I think the writers did a fine job with this story and the concept of what makes a hero or maybe whether all of our heroes really aren't heroic after all. There were a few places that could have been tighter, but this film was never meant to be perfect, and for that I am glad. Kudos to Jonathan Glatzer on a uniquely different film. I love it.