With her new indie comedy, In a World, writer/director/star Lake Bell finally brings us the type of story the world has been clamoring to have told for ages—an insightful, satirical take on the scintillating world of voice over acting. Sold? Okay, so maybe voice over acting doesn’t sound like the most exciting subject for a movie at first glance, but in the hands of a triple threat talent as capable as Bell, it still makes for a fun comedy with a healthy dose of brains that’s likely to please whatever audience it’s able to find.
The film sees Bell playing a character named Carol, a fairly adept impressionist who’s trying her hand at breaking into the male-dominated world of commercial voice over work. The basic conceit here is that, following the death of the undisputed legend of the industry, Don LaFontaine (who was best known for narrating movie trailers that began with his catch phrase of “In a world...”), movie execs have decided to find a new voice to hand his “In a world...” catch phrase down to, so that their big blockbuster films might continue to be sold with the appropriate amount of pomp and circumstance. Is it possible that Carol could have what it takes to break through the gender barriers of the industry in order to land a gig that would make her top dog in the world of delivering overblown, pompous narration into a microphone? Not if her father, Sam (Fred Melamed), who’s long been considered the second best voice actor working, or Gustav (Ken Marino), the up and coming young hotshot of the industry, have anything to say about it. A cutthroat competition to be the voice of the trailers for the Amazon Games quadrilogy commences.
Seeing as she had a hand in pretty much every aspect of this movie coming together, it would be pretty hard to talk about In a World without talking about Bell. To put it simply, she’s great. She’s one of those faces who has popped up in various indie comedies and cult television shows continually over the last decade or so, but who’s never really had a platform to show the extent of what she has to offer as a talent. Here, with a starring role in her debut feature as a writer and director, she finally gets that platform, and she proves herself to be a versatile enough talent that it would be a great injustice if she doesn’t manage to have a long career in some aspect of the industry from this point forward. She’s funny, she’s got dramatic chops, she’s pretty, she can generate her own material—what’s not to like?
The big reason In a World... succeeds as a film is that its script is so damned witty. On the surface this is just your typical indie film that’s about the relationship and career struggles of a young creative type, but what separates it from the pack a bit is that it’s noticeably laugh out loud funny for the entirety of its run time. The dialogue is clever and quippy, and all of the observations about which voice types are typically attached to which personality types are so insightful that they actually manage to make impression work funny. Just imagine that—after all this time somebody finally found a context in which impressions are funny. That’s a feat that’s worth the price of admission alone.
One big thing that helps the cleverness of the script come out is the charm of the supporting cast. Bell gets to do most of the heavy lifting here, but her success was undoubtedly helped by surrounding herself with talented and experienced comedic voices like Demetri Martin, Tig Notaro, Nick Offerman, Ken Marino, and Rob Corddry. It would be pretty hard to pack all of those people in a movie and not come up with something that’s at least amusing. More than anyone else though, Melamed absolutely steals the film as the arrogant though cripplingly insecure father figure. He’s the sort of character actor who you watch pop up in things for decades before the depths of what he has to offer as a performer finally clicks in your head, and for me this was the performance that made things click. He’s hilarious, vital, and has a palpable charisma that absolutely commands your attention. Special mention should be made of Stephanie Allynne as well, because she only gets a couple scenes with which to make an impact with a silly character, but she dives in so enthusiastically and unashamedly that she earns a bunch of laughs and manages to stand out in a crowd regardless. She hasn’t done a whole lot of feature work yet, so hopefully she starts getting used a lot more after this turn.
As is usually the case, In a World does have a couple of problems that keep it from being a complete success. There’s a minor focus problems in the storytelling, where too many side characters who seem to be related to the main plot but ultimately aren’t get introduced and threaten the narrative momentum a bit, but mostly In a World’s issues appear when it tries to mine its characters’ romantic relationships for drama. Specifically, there’s one big subplot that is so clunky in its setup and delivery that every time focus switches to it you suddenly start to feel like you’re watching a much more mainstream, much more lame rom-com—or at least a twisted version of Home Alone 2 where Kevin McAllister’s Talkboy is used to threaten his parents’ marriage. Not only does this subplot fail to really add up to much, it actually takes away from the heart of the film—which is the Bell character’s search for an identity—and it could easily have been cut out at any stage of the writing, so it ends up feeling like a particularly egregious misstep. Not so much of a misstep that it subverts the constant stream of laughter the film is able to produce otherwise, but enough of one that it bumps this one down from must-see status to just being a solid recommendation.
