Campbell Babbit (Steve Coogan) is a reporter for a New York newspaper. He is writing a story about a woman who lost her son and has turned around her loss into a mission to help people. During his writing he falls in love with the woman. The woman (Molly Shannon) commits suicide, but Babbit continues to write stories that he makes up about her. He is sent to the hometown of Christa McAuliffe to cover the space shuttle launch which gets postponed. He meets a group of students whose teacher has also committed suicide and finds out what led to the suicide. There he falls in love with one of the students and struggles with his own recent loss. What lessons does Babbit learn in his quest to find heroes?