Movie Review - In a World...

In a World... (2013)

Starring Lake Bell, Fred Melamed, Ken Marino, Demetri Martin, Rob Corddry, Michaela Watkins, Alexandra Holden, and Nick Offerman

Directed by Lake Bell

Written, directed, and starring Lake Bell, In a World... (which will be ellipsis-free from here on out in this review) is a charming debut for the first-time writer and lenser.  Bell is thirty-one year-old Carol who, at the film's start, is still living with her father trying to make a career out of being a dialect coach for famous actors.  Her father Sam (Fred Melamed) is a famous voice-over artist who is well-known throughout the biz as being the second-most-respected talker behind the world-famous Don LaFontaine (a real-life voiceover artist who died within the past several years).  Sam is a likely successor to LaFontaine's crown, but he recognizes that his time in the business is nearing its end so he's been acting as a mentor to the up-and-coming Gustav (Ken Marino) who is quickly becoming a star in the voice-over world.  What Sam can't seem to fathom is that Carol wants to follow her father's footsteps in a business that doesn't look kindly on females.  When a movie studio decides that it wants to create an epic trailer that harkens back to and honors Mr. LaFontaine who made the words "In a World" so infamous in the realm of movie trailers, Carol, Sam, and Gustav all find themselves duking it out to claim this coveted prize.

While Lake Bell certainly crafted a film about a topic I'm not sure we've ever before seen grace the silver screen, In a World is, admittedly, quite typical in its stories and characters.  While Bell doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to a comedy, what she is able to do extremely well is create characters and dialog that seem believable and relatable.  Sometimes these low budget comedies are filled with people who either (a) wouldn't exist in the real world with their weirdly verbose vocabularies, or (b) you find it a chore to hang out with for ninety minutes.  In In a World, all of Bell's characters seem based in reality -- granted, it's a reality we may not be entirely familiar with given that I've never met nor likely will ever meet a voice-over artist, but it's still a world that I could easily find myself easing into.  There's something charming about the notion that these characters seem so down-to-earth.

Certainly, Bell's cast helps aid this easy-going atmosphere that she created for the film.  In addition to the aforementioned Fred Melamed and Ken Marino (who both are quite funny here), there's a nice repartee created by Rob Corddry and Michaela Watkins (the latter of the recently cancelled Trophy Wife which was the most underrated show of the 2013-14 tv seaston) as Carol's brother-in-law and sister.  Their relationship anchors a good portion of the plot which, in retrospect, does take a little too much of the focus off of Carol, but still doesn't prove overly detrimental to the overall tone of the flick.

I know that In a World isn't a perfect film and as I reflect back on it, I realize that its script could've used a little more refining.  However, for a first go at writing a feature-length film, I think Lake Bell shows a huge amount of promise.  Not only does she excel at creating a believable environment in both her writing and her directing, but she's utterly charming to watch onscreen.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+