Weir, 24, comes from Quarryville, Pa., and doesn't put on a pair of skates until he's 12, long after most top skaters. He teaches himself the double axel by watching TV before Priscilla Hill agreeds to coach him and makes Newark, Del., his training town.

In four years, he evolves from a skinny little boy "with legs up to his armpits" as his mother, Patti, remembers in the film, to Junior World Champion. After a fifth-place showing at the 2002 U.S. Championships and a withdrawal the following year (to much criticism), Weir snaps off three first-place finishes and earns a trip to the 2006 Olympics.

But instead of grabbing the top of the podium, Weir falls apart--"All I could hear was the shutters of the cameras...It was like I was skating on metal legs," he tells the filmmakers.

A man who almost always shoulders the blame for his skating miscues, Weir blames a change in the athletes' bus schedule for his poor showing and produces perhaps the most laughed-at quote of the Winter Games: "I didn’t feel my inner peace. I didn’t feel my aura. Inside I was black."

The palette doesn't improve. Weir has terrible performances at the 2006 and 2007 World Championships.

The film follows it all, including Weir's eventual breakup with Hill and new partnership with coach Galina Zmievskaya, a taskmaster from Russia who runs his life on the ice. It deliciously zeroes in on the rivalry between Weir and Evan Lysacek, the man who takes his U.S. title in decisive fashion.

Perhaps the most telling "get" of the whole 85-minute film is the press conference after the 2007 Nationals. As Lysacek gushes about his win, the camera pans to Weir, who stares straight ahead and slowly shakes his head, "no" in disgust.

Weir rebounds at the 2008 Nationals to finish in a tie with Lysacek, but earns the silver because his rival had a higher score in the free skate--the tie breaker. At the World Championships, Weir skates a beautiful short program, good for second place, but appears tentative in the free skate and drops to third. He wins his first Worlds medal but more importantly, keeps the U.S. team from being shut out of the medals for the first time in 14 years. 

Producers Barba and Pellerito say they began filming with an eye toward a broader documentary on figure skating. But when they saw how Weir attracted media attention at 2005 Nationals in St. Louis, they narrowed their focus.

Their plans were to film Weir for three days in 2006, "but once we started, it never stopped," Barba says.

It's three years and counting. Now that the movie is done, the producers are shooting a seven-part TV series on Weir's preparation for the 2010 Olympics that will air on the Sundance Channel in January. The documentary will air on TV in December. There's more details at this link.

"There are so many ups and downs," says Pellerito. "The drama is there. All you have to do is press the record button."