JONATHAN SAWYER

Jonathan Sawyer is almost 40, balding, single, never married. He had a long-term girlfriend once, but she left him for someone more exciting. He was a non-athletic kid growing up, and could never make the school teams, but he has always followed sports avidly. Now he runs a tiny, one-man insurance business. The business isn’t doing so well. He feels like his life is going nowhere. At the beginning, he had planned to sell insurance for just a year or two while he got some other exciting business ideas together, but those ideas never panned out and ten years have already passed. All day long he sits at his desk trying to convince his insurance customers that they should play it safe, be conservative. But lately he has been feeling that if he himself doesn’t take a big chance soon, doesn’t shake things up and make a change in the near future, he will be stuck in this cramped, depressing office for the rest of his life. More than anything in the world, Jonathan Sawyer wants to be somebody. He wants to reinvent himself. He wants to do something original.

For a long time he didn’t know what that thing should be. The idea that he would ever start a new sport was the farthest thing from his mind. Hasn’t everything worthwhile already been tried anyway? But about a year ago, one afternoon when he was least expecting it, inspiration struck him and aisling was born.

MIKE MILLER

Mike Miller, 39, was the star actor of the University of Missouri theater department. His professors thought he had a good chance of making a name for himself in New York or Los Angeles. But when his father died after his graduation, something in Mike began to change. He sank into depression. Eventually, he hit rock bottom and suffered a breakdown. He ended up homeless. Now, several years later, Mike is on the upswing. He does odd jobs here and there but really wants to get back to his dream of being a professional actor, but he’s no longer sure that he can. Mike sees aisling as a chance to take a first step, to prove to himself that he can focus on something creative again. The prize money would be nice, he says, but he also knows it is not enough to make a lasting difference to him. What he needs right now is a way to get back out into the world.

Mike decides that his aisling routine will be about his life. He will start out as a homeless man, and will slowly peel off layers until he has transformed into a new person. Mike is a little out of shape, but he begins to practice incessantly. For the majority of the film audience, Mike will be the competitor they root for most. He is smart, self-aware, eloquent, insightful, and humorous. He works the hardest. He needs this the most. And he is the most fragile. In the Preliminaries, Mike is nervous, but he is more prepared than the others, and gives a powerful performance. To his great joy, he wins first place.

There is still a month before the Finals. Mike has gained respect, but he also feels more pressure now. He has forgotten what it’s like to have people’s expectations on him. He trains incessantly and starts showing signs of over-exhaustion. Mike goes into the final competition with a routine we have watched him practice a hundred times. Ranked number one following the preliminaries, all eyes are on him when it’s his turn to perform. Regardless of whether he wins or loses in the finals, we sense that he has been changed by the experience.

CHRIS NIELSEN

Chris Nielsen, 40, is a soft-spoken loner, with a strong dislike of rules and authority. He was a motorcycle mechanic for many years, but recently quit his job. He says he is taking some time off to think about what he wants to do with his life, and has been spending most of his days now watching football on TV, riding his motocross bike out in the woods (“it’s nice out here, far away from the cops”), and shooting targets with his assault rifle and his handguns. He says that he doesn’t care about winning the prize money, and probably won’t even bother picking up the food items. No, he thinks the sport is stupid. He just wants to aisle because it will give him a chance to do something crazy and maybe dangerous in the supermarket, and that sounds like fun.

As soon as Chris gets his shopping cart, he takes it into the garage and starts to weld. He’s not sure what he’s going to do with his routine yet, but he knows he wants to use pyrotechnics. Maybe he will attach an air cannon to his cart, so he can shoot marshmallows or something at the judges. Later, as we get to know Chris, we realize that underneath his gruff exterior he is gentle and lonely. Early in the film, Chris doesn’t really interact with the other competitors, but as time goes on he seems to enjoy being part of something, part of this ragtag community of aislers. Despite himself, he begins to care about how good his routine is going to be.

There’s no doubt Chris is looking forward to setting off fireworks in the supermarket. Will he use his time in the finals to ride down the aisles and wreak as much havoc as possible, or will he try to win the prize money after all?

AARON & KELLEY MARCHBANKS

Aaron & Kelley Marchbanks, 30 and 26, are married. Kelley has been competing in beauty pageants all her life. She was runner-up Miss Missouri. She is perky and theatrical, a natural born competitor. Her whole family is involved in the pageant world – her parents do audio work for her shows. But Kelley is very pregnant now, and while she is thrilled about starting a family of her own, she also feels a little sad that her pageant days are ending. When she hears about aisling, she thinks that her skills would apply to this new sport, and that if she convinces her husband to sign up, she could at least be his coach. Aaron thinks the idea is great. He likes to do everything he can to make his wife happy. But after the town meeting, Jonathan assures Kelley that the sport really is for everyone, even pregnant women. Kelley doesn’t need much coaxing, and signs up too.

For her routine, Kelley decides to portray a pregnant woman who fantasizes that she is a contestant in a beauty pageant. Aaron likes Star Trek, so he decides to turn his cart into the Starship Enterprise. The Marchbanks appear to be a wholesome and perpetually cheery couple, but their approach to aisling is all business. They are cutthroat, and proud of it. If they see a weakness in another competitor, they exploit it. They are secretive and never practice their moves in front of the others. She even visits her old pageant coach for advice on her routine.

Arguably, the Marchbanks are probably the closest this film comes to having anything like an “antagonist” or “villain,” if only because Aaron and Kelley have the most advantages, the most money, and their drive to win feels more corporate and less homespun than the others. But we also learn that they have had a rough time in recent years. Aaron had cancer, which is now in remission, and doctors told them that they would not be able to conceive a child. Kelley’s pregnancy was a surprise, and they are feeling blessed by their fortune.

The Marchbanks are expertly prepared for the final competition. Their carts and costumes have been ready for weeks, their routines polished and refined. Will their strategy pay off in the end?

CLARE ADRIAN

Clare Adrian, 55, lives alone, divorced several years now. Her two grown kids are far away in other parts of the country. She works as a freelance writer, in a secluded little office in her basement, turning out pieces for various magazines about topics beyond her interests. She dreams of a life filled with more creativity, more energy and passion, one she had left behind. When did she become so introverted? There was a time, when she was young in the era of the flower child, when she followed her heart. She was an actress, musician, songwriter, poet, playwright and artist. She let her arts take her where she wanted to go. Her young self would be appalled to see how circumscribed her world has become, how far away she has strayed from who she wanted to be. Clare thinks aisling is absurd, but that might be just what she needs right now, to do something that doesn’t have to make sense. She is tired of worrying about what other people think. Aisling would be an opportunity to revive her creative spirit. This is an opportunity for her to let go of her inhibitions and express herself once again.

She decides her routine should be about freedom, beauty and joy. At the Preliminaries, however, she suffers terrible stage fright and scores poorly, just barely making the cut, and she is sorely disappointed. What was she thinking anyway? It was ridiculous for her to try this. Clare decides to quit the competition. But Jonathan is determined not to let her give up, and finally convinces her to throw herself back into training. Clare is still having trouble pulling her overambitious creation together cohesively. It’s made from scratch and she continuously compares her conception as less polished than those of the other aislers. Maybe it really is too late to wriggle free from her inhibitions and find her old self again, she thinks. Maybe that Clare is gone forever.

She shows up to the final competition dressed as a creature that will emerge from an elaborately constructed papier-mache cocoon. The starting line is not where she imagined it to be – she starts to panic about where to set down the cocoon. Will Clare take this in stride or will it cast a shadow over her final performance?

WES CUNNINGHAM

Wes Cunningham, 58, is a contest addict. He is an eccentric family man who enters every sweepstakes, giveaway, and competition that comes his way. His house is filled with an odd assortment of merchandise that he has won. His wife rolls her eyes at his contest habit, but we can tell that she finds his boyish enthusiasm endearing. Wes is aisling because he’d like to win the $10,000. He doesn’t appear to have an artistic or athletic bone in his body, but that’s not going to stop him. When he explains the sport to his family, his son looks worried. “You’re gonna dance?” His wife just shakes her head. Wes bobs awkwardly across the living room carpet, grinning like he has already won the money. His sweet affability is infectious – nothing seems to get him down.

Later, we learn that Wes works in a prison. It is the only time in the film that his face darkens. The prison is soul-crushing to him, and seems to put his goofiness and contest addiction in a different light. We also learn that although Wes seems to enjoy stockpiling his winnings around his home, he’s a sweet and thoughtful guy. If he gets the aisling money, he’s going to save it to give his yet-to-be engaged daughter a nice wedding. Wes is philosophical about competing, which could be a contributing factor to his success. “You can’t win if you don’t try.” For his aisling routine, Wes decides to have a Western theme because he likes country music. He starts dressing like a cowboy. He builds a sorry-looking chuck wagon cart. His dancing is still woeful. But he is convinced he can win, and throws himself into practicing.

In the final competition, Wes surprises everyone by arriving with a greatly improved chuck wagon cart. We wonder if his moves could have improved that drastically as well? It remains to be seen if today is going to be Wes’ lucky day.

SARITA PETERS & VICTORIA HOWERTON

Sarita Peters, 10, likes the idea that a kid can compete against adults on an equal level in this sport. Sarita is very close to her great-grandmother, and she was sad when her great-grandmother’s dog died recently. If Sarita wins the prize money, she plans to buy her a new dog. Victoria Howerton, 39, is Sarita’s busy but good-natured mom. She wants to be a better parent. She knows she has been preoccupied with her work, and that she doesn’t spend enough quality time with her daughter. As a mother, she is too serious, she thinks – too often a disciplinarian. Victoria doesn’t like games or sports or performing, and she has never really known how to play well with Sarita, how to just relax and be silly. She is skeptical about aisling: at the town meeting, she tells Jonathan that she thinks he and the documentary crew are just trying to make fun of Midwesterners. But Sarita really wants to do it, and Victoria really wants to improve their relationship, and in the end she signs them up.

More than any other character in the film, Victoria is a stand-in for the audience’s point of view. She is smart and questions everything. She befriends Jonathan, and is the only person who really asks him about what he is thinking and feeling. Even though Victoria always acts like she’s just doing this competition for Sarita, and tries to maintain an ironic distance, we notice as time goes on that she is getting into it, that she is becoming more obsessed about aisling than her daughter is. Over the weeks of practicing together, their relationship begins to change, and there are moments when Sarita seems more like the adult than Victoria does.

In the final competition, Sarita plays an old grandmother; Victoria plays a haggard housewife who transforms into a more youthful version of herself. How they score is almost irrelevant. We can tell that neither of them will ever be able to take the chore of shopping seriously again.