In a World...

As I've mentioned many times before, comedies are my favorite genre, but in recent past, it has been extremely difficult to either find a decent comedy or to come across one that I would ever even give a chance in seeing. The last very good comedy was "The Way Way Back", and thought that would be it until the end of the summer season, until I viewed "In a World...".

An underachieving vocal coach, Carol (Lake Bell) is motivated by her nice, but condescending father, Sam (Fred Melamed), the king of movie-trailer voice overs, to pursue her aspirations of becoming a voiceover star. Amidst pride, sexism and family dysfunction, she sets out to change the voice of a generation.
All involved come to realize that there is a new movie franchise--a quadrilogy, if you will, that is being filmed and needs a voice over actor for the trailer, so between Carol, Sam, and Gustav (Ken Marino), an associate of Sam's, they all end up competing for the big time trailer. Carol is being coached by her co-worker/friend, Louis (Demetri Martin), Sam's being somewhat prompted by his girlfriend, Mimi (Olya Milova) and Gustav is practicing on his own. Which one will ultimately get the coveted position?

Others to round out the cast are Rob Corddry as Moe, Carol's brother-in-law, Michaela Watkins as Dani, Carol's sister, Nick Offerman as Heners, Tig Notaro as Cher as a co-worker of Louis', Alexandra Holden as Jamie, Geena Davis as Katherine Huling, Stephanie Allynne as Nancy, Melissa Disney as Melinda Chisney, Corsica Wilson as Stacy, Eva Longoria as Herself, Jeff Garlin as Himself, and Don LaFontaine as Himself (Archival Footage). LaFontaine was the real-life king of the movie trailers for decades.

This was surprisingly well written and directed by its star, Lake Bell ("Worst Enemy" (short) '10, "El Tonto" (short) '12). Bell has acted in many films, mostly in romantic comedies as character roles, so when I realized that not only she starred in this film, but also wrote and directed it, I had a certain degree of trepidation in watching this. But, since the premise of this film has a certain personal interest for me, how could I resist? I had, for many years, thought of becoming a voice over actor, and even though I never entered the field, the interest was, and always has been there. Even though there is a certain amount of bias in seeing this film, I still can say that, with a couple of small slow places, this was incredibly well written and directed. The comedy had that subtleness about it which made it even funnier.

Whether you have an interest in the voice over arena or not, a good many people will be able to relate with the different eclectic characters in this, all the while being amused by the dysfunction and the struggles all of them experience in getting those acting jobs.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                        Rated: R                          93mins.