IN A WORLD is set in the hitherto unexplored world of voice-over artistes; those people who are always heard announcing film trailers whose identities are seldom revealed. Carol (Lake Bell) is struggling to make a living in the shadow of her father Sam's - stage name Sotto's (Fred Melamed's) reputation. Hitherto the voice-over market has been dominated by male artistes, with Gustav (Ken Marino) seeking to challenge Sotto's position. By accident Carol manages to obtain a high- profile gig at Gustav's expense, and from then on she is set on the road to voice-over stardom. Needless to say her male rivals are outraged by this subversion of what they perceive as the 'natural' - i.e. patriarchal - order of things, and try to unseat her, even though Sotto is initially unaware of the female rival's identity. IN A WORLD makes some neat satirical points about the inflated egos of voice-over artistes, who in their way are equally as prima-donna-like as any other performers, even though they spend their time having to teach better- known actors how to speak properly. There's a neat scene in the film where Carol is shown trying to teach Eva Longoria how to speak cockney, a difficult task at the best of times. Nor does director Bell - who also wrote the screenplay - give us the pleasure of a wish-fulfilling ending: Carol is shown returning to her first love of teaching young women how to pronounce better, so that they may advance their careers. Voice-over artistes do not necessarily have to restrict their professional focus to the movie world., The script is both sharp and witty, with good supporting performances from Demetri Martin as a sound engineer trying to declare his love for Carol, and Rob Corddry as a long-suffering husband.
Review of In a World...
