In A World… takes it’s title from the unforgettable catchline of the late Don LaFontaine, the
voice actor whose deep, thunderous delivery of said line became synonymous with the film
trailers and advertisements we know today. Over news footage of his passing and industry legacy
we are introduced to Carol Solomon (Writer, director and star Lake Bell), a struggling vocal
coach eeking out a career in the Los Angeles vocal performance community and attempting
to emerge from the shadow of her father ‘Sam Sotto’ (Fred Melamed of A Serious Man), the
current ‘King Of The Voiceover’ after LaFontaine’s death. When a major production company
decide to bring back the ‘in a world’ tag to promote their new fantasy blockbuster franchise
Carol decides to throw her hat into the ring of competition against her father and hideously
chauvinistic upstart Gustav Warner (Ken Marino). May the best voice win…
The brilliantly droll trailer for Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedian aside (Google it, trust me) the world of
film trailer voiceovers sound likes an unexpected and unlikely source for a comedy yet it proves
an inspired choice that owes a lot to the talents of it’s leading lady/helmer. In A World… toes
the line with a cliche triumph of the underdog story arc yet breathes fresh life into the formula
with it’s unique spin of genre tropes and uncanny industry insight. It’s a world where words
don’t just speak louder than actions; they are the action and Bell has a lot of fun with the daily
grind of voice artists, their obsessive commitments to their trade (Carol is constantly armed
with a tape recorder for capturing sound bites from various passersby) and even a hysterically
OTT Rocky style training montage. Fledging these ideas out to a 90 minute running time sounds
like an awful stretch but it’s a testament to not just Bell’s handling of the material but to her
central performance that it works as well as it does. Charm can be an easy word to throw around
but she quite frankly radiates the stuff. Carol faces down a lot of problems that seem recurrent
in comedies of this ilk (a fumbling romance with a sound designer is an amusing subplot) yet
Bell never allows her to be swamped by them or cowed into submission. She breezes across the
screen with an elegant but spikey energy that is infectious, spouting off an acerbic, un-PC wit
that gets laughs by the plenty. She’s ably supported by fellow performers, many of them her own
friends and fellow collaborators, who revel in the brilliant, partly improvised dialogue.
In A World… is not breaking any major new ground and if there are faults to be found it is when
the film strays closest to the formula it is gently ribbing. There are no major surprises to which
way Carol’s professional and romantic endeavours will play out and some may bemoan the
seemingly signposted turns her relationship with her father pop up, though frankly the chemistry
between Bell and the wonderfully bemused Melamed is a joy to watch. A climactic monologue
about the role of women in the industry and ‘finding your voice’ is admittedly quite on the nose
though frankly Bell deserves all the credit she gets for creating one of the most likeable leads of
recent memory and not bowing down to the dull and conformed roles that many actresses have to
submit to in the romcom genre. She picked up a Waldo Salt Screenwriting award for her work at
Sundance Utah earlier in the year and hopefully on the basis of this, it won’t be the last accolade
to come her way.