In a World…

The funniest thing about In a World… is that it’s actually set in a parallel world – one where having voice-over artists narrate movie trailers is still a big thing. Well, that’s not really the funniest thing: with roughly half the cast of hilarious and bizarre sitcom Children’s Hospital in this debut feature from writer/director/star Lake Bell (also from Children’s Hospital), it’s hardly surprising that there are a lot of funny lines in here.
Bell plays Carol Solomon, a struggling L.A. voice coach who happens to be the daughter of the reigning king of voice-over artists, Sam Sotto (Fred Melamed). He’s only the king because the (real-life) king, Don LaFontaine, recently died and took his famous “In a world…” trailer opening line with him. But now the studios want to bring it back, and the race is on to find someone able to do it justice. Sam gracefully withdraws from the battle in favour of his protégé, Gustav Warner (Ken Marino), but with Carol’s voice-over career finally taking off and the studio keen to put a new spin on “In a world…” – especially as the movie, The Amazon Games, is aimed at young women – could there be an upset? And if so, who will Sam side with?
This is a bit choppy overall, and the various underlying messages are a bit blurry even when there’s a scene where a character literally explains them to Carol. But there’s also a lot of very funny stuff here, and a lot of the character material – especially the scenes between Carol and her more professional sister Dani (Michaela Watkins) – has real charm to it.
Written by Anthony Morris