Character Relationship Map: What Goes Up

Characters

• Campbell Babbitt (played by Steve Coogan) — protagonist

  A reporter who arrives in Concord in January 1986 to cover the hometown excitement surrounding the Space Shuttle Challenger launch. After discovering an apparent suicide involving an old college frien...

• Lucy Diamond (played by Hilary Duff) — supporting

  A narcissistic seductress who leads a group of dysfunctional student outcasts. Lucy becomes one of the central young people drawing Campbell Babbitt into the students' complicated world, where his att...

• Tess Sullivan (played by Olivia Thirlby) — supporting

  A scheming pregnant teenager among the school's dysfunctional outcasts. Tess is part of the unusual student group that attracts Campbell Babbitt's attention after his personal discovery, helping shift...

• Ann (played by Ingrid Nilson) — supporting

Canonical Relationships

Family, romantic, and professional connections based on plot evidence.

• Campbell Babbitt → Lucy Diamond (Romantic Rejected Intimacy And Conflicted Trust) — Lucy attempts to replace her grief with intimacy, while Campbell maintains emotional distance and questions her account of the teacher's relationship with her.

  Lucy grows close to Campbell and tries to draw him into an intimate relationship, but he refuses. Their conflict intensifies when Lucy says Campbell d...

Story Dynamics

Alliances, conflicts, and narrative interactions that evolve throughout the story.

• Campbell Babbitt → Ann (Narrative Reported Personal Connection) — The supplied material does not provide enough evidence to define a more specific relationship.

  The character material identifies Ann as part of the film's supporting cast, but the supplied plot reference does not describe a specific interaction...

• Lucy Diamond → Tess Sullivan (Conflict Accusatory Rivalry) — Lucy treats Tess as someone whose report damaged her connection with the teacher, while Tess's pregnancy and relationship to Campbell place her in opposition to Lucy's narrative.

  Lucy claims Tess reported the teacher after seeing him and Lucy together. Tess's actions therefore become part of Lucy's explanation for the investiga...

• Campbell Babbitt → Tess Sullivan (Alliance Supportive Investigative Bond) — Campbell provides direct practical support to Tess, but his decision to help her contributes to Lucy's resentment and deepens the competing accounts surrounding the teacher's death.

  Campbell learns that Tess became pregnant and accompanies her to end the pregnancy.

Story Analysis

A reporter investigating a teacher's death discovers that stories, grief, and personal identity can obscure rather than simplify the truth.

Plot Progression

1. The Reporter’s Burden — Campbell introduces the professional rules that shaped his reporting. His memories of Angela reveal that he has already violated his own emotional boundary.
2. A Teacher Remembered — Campbell arrives in New Hampshire to investigate a teacher's death. The students resist being turned into material and insist that the teacher helped them trust one another.
3. Stories and Redemption — Campbell shares the story of Angela and explains why stories may offer redemption. The students question his feelings and force him to examine his own motives.
4. Grief and Suspicion — Lucy grows close to Campbell and seeks intimacy, while a suspension letter suggests an inappropriate relationship involving the teacher. Campbell begins to doubt the students' idealized version of eve...
5. Conflicting Testimonies — Campbell supports Tess through her pregnancy, provoking Lucy's anger. Their confrontation produces incompatible explanations about the teacher, the report, and the necklace.