"American Shopper" is a hybrid - part documentary, part fiction. The main character, Jonathan Sawyer, is played by an actor. Everyone else who appears in the film is a real person. The other characters know Jonathan Sawyer is an actor, but they also know that the competition itself is real and unscripted. The film audience will feel like it is watching a mock documentary that seems a little too believable to be untrue.

The tone of the film is comedic, but it is played straight, low-key and deadpan - comparable to the tone in some fictitious documentaries like The Office or Best in Show.

"American Shopper" has the look and feel of a documentary. The main story is often interrupted by comically-serious interviews with various experts, who speak to the camera as if this is supposed to be a penetrating sociological film about America's obsession with shopping, and as if this whole crazy aisling competition is just a good lens through which to view the real issues. We hear from psychologists and sports writers and local historians; there are shopping cart manufacturers talking about the history of cart design, security guards talking about the impact of 9/11 on supermarket safety, a Schnucks spokesman talking about the rise of superstores and how much they have hurt the traditional supermarket business. Each expert puts the whole idea of aisling in a different light, attaching his or her own personal significance to it, whether positive or negative. On one level, the film becomes a satire of documentary making. But in a humorous way, the experts really do broaden the scope of the film and give it a deeper resonance.

"American Shopper" is a "Man with a Dream" story and a "Sports Competition" story. Like any good sports movie, it has its share of heartbreak and triumph - much of the drama will come from the real competitors. Though the film is certainly a comedy, it does not make fun of its characters. It seeks out what is redemptive and human in even the silliest situations, and finds something celebratory in our desire to stand out, to be different, to be crazy, to reinvent ourselves. It plays with the idea that Americans try to turn anything we enjoy into a game, and that we think we should enjoy just about everything we do. Inevitably, the film reflects on the way that movements get started - how often, in the history of America, movements were begun by people who were not quite who they claimed to be, and how often new ideas that at first seem hair-brained and pointless have grown with time into something pervasive and meaningful. It reminds us that sometimes, right at the edge of ridiculousness, you find some grace.