"American Shopper" is a feature-length film about one man's passionate and comic struggle to start an unlikely new sport, and about the citizens of a small town who overcome their initial skepticism and get swept up in his crazy dream. The film follows the stories of several townspeople who decide to participate in the sport and compete in the 1st National Aisling Championship, and whose lives are turned upside down in the process.

The unlikely new sport is called "aisling". The sport's inventor, Jonathan Sawyer, was inspired by something he had read in a newspaper article recently: "The average American shopper spends 6000 hours in his or her lifetime just shopping for food, which is the equivalent of shopping day and night without stopping for 250 days." As he looked over the store that afternoon, everyone appeared numb and bored pushing their little carts around, and it seemed sad to him that people had to spend so much time doing an activity that brought them so little pleasure. He started to envision carefully choreographed routines set to music, exhibitions of grace or balance, strength or speed, a cross between figure skating and skateboarding. He pictured people gliding and spinning through the aisles with their carts - handstands, jumps, cartwheels - as they collected produce and products from the shelves for points. There would be a panel of judges and a complicated scoring system. The smooth floors and wide aisles were just asking for it.

"American Shopper" follows Jonathan Sawyer through his attempts to launch aisling and hold a championship event. We watch as he finds the perfect town and once there, tries to convince town officials, citizens, the local supermarket, and anyone else who will listen, that they should be excited about his idea and should give him permission to have the competition here. He passes out flyers on the street. He navigates various obstacles - the awkward meetings with influential people, the visits to sketchy neighborhoods to recruit promising competitors.

We meet dozens of citizens during this process but the film focuses on eight townspeople who will eventually become participants in the competition, and who will remain central characters throughout the film. Along with Jonathan Sawyer, these eight people are the main characters of "American Shopper". (For a detailed description of each, see the "Cast" section.) We follow them through training, trials and tribulations for two months leading up to the big competition. The participants are an impressively diverse group of people, racially mixed, young and old, fat and thin, rich and poor. As we watch our eight main competitor characters working out at the gym, designing their routines, practicing their trickiest maneuvers, or sewing costumes, we become intimately involved in their personal lives - we learn about their pasts, their disappointments, their hopes for the future. Each character has a different reason for wanting to compete, a different story arc, a different feeling about the sport itself.

The film culminates in the final competition--the 1st National Aisling Championship. By this time the audience has formed a bond with each of the aislers, as well as with Jonathan. Will Jonathan Sawyer overcome the administrative and political headaches and succeed in making his dream a reality? Which one of the aislers will fulfill his or her potential out there on the supermarket floor? Choke under the pressure? Emerge victorious?