Think about this: When was that last time you saw a trailer that contained booming voice-over narration explaining the film’s plot and major themes? Not text on the screen or movie dialogue taken out of context, but narration, recorded exclusively for the trailer? You may have to go back some time.
Don LaFontaine recorded these epic orations for more than 5,000 titles, peaking in the ’90s and trademarking the ubiquitous, now-laughable trailer preamble “In a world…” But the method just isn’t in vogue anymore. You can argue that when LaFontaine died, of a pulmonary embolism in 2008, the movie-trailer voice-over business died with him.
That hasn’t stopped Lake Bell, a disarmingly talented writer, director and actor, from setting her debut feature, In a World…, in this cloistered, contentious and microscopically small community. For her three voice-over artistes vying for jobs — struggling vocal coach Carol (Bell); her semi-retired father Sam Sotto, a titan in the industry (Fred Melamed); and Gustav Warner (Ken Marino), a noxious womanizer –- their entire worlds revolve around 60-second promos for ludicrous popcorn projects. They talk shop at gaseous parties, wax poetically about LaFontaine’s legend, and attend black-tie award shows for their work.
Are these people still this important? Given how few trailers use voice-overs anymore, In a World… has the feel of a contemporaneous nostalgia piece that’s more after its time than before it. But it’s also a refreshingly original movie milieu, almost inside-baseball but not quite. There’s no surprise it won a major screenwriting award at Sundance this past year.
Bell’s Carol is on a downward trajectory as the film begins. Her father, having decided to shack up with a 30-year-old groupie who, in Carol’s words, “always smells like Life Savers,” kicks his daughter out of the house, prompting her to move in with her sister Dani (Michaela Watkins), whose marriage to Moe (Rob Corddry) has seen better days.
In between helping hopeless thespians enunciate Cockney insults, Carol happens upon an opportunity to record a voice-over for a “children’s romantic comedy.” She gets the job, and then another, and then another, thanks in part to Louis (the lovable Demetri Martin), a sound engineer with a crush on her. Complications ensue that ultimately pit father against daughter for the biggest Hollywood trailer of the year.
At the risk of burying the lede any further, In a World… is, in addition to being witty and charming, a feminist picture. In pitting her heroine against one of cinema’s most macho patriarchies, Bell becomes the Katherine Bigelow of voice-overs, breaking a glass ceiling in an admittedly tiny house, but a house nonetheless. Her screenplay is all about empowering creative, thoughtful women and excoriating the unconfident, Valley-speaking airheads whose vocal pitch she hilariously likens to “sexy babies.” By controlling your voice, you control your life.
Moreover, Bell’s own physical beauty is unique and self-effacing, tempered by rough edges and her unselfconscious decisions. She has a Greta Gerwig-like ability to express herself, warts and all. We see Carol biting her nails, cleaning herself on the toilet and spooning bits of jam and peanut butter from their containers into her mouth – stuff pretty girls don’t usually do in the movies.
As in the Judd Apatow movies, Bell also inserts a touching B-plot, by exploring the marital friction between Jamie and Moe and the potentially adulterous opportunities that arise for both of them. Here, too, Bell spins dramatic gold from a plebeian foundation, creating an utterly believable dynamic, refusing to condemn or mock either’s actions, and never condescending to them. It really is a lesson in adult screenwriting.
I hate to end with another comparison to a talented female auteur, but Bell is a bit like Brit Marling. It seems that in male-dominated Hollywood, intelligent female leads are as rare as spotted owls, so both of these actresses need to create them. This theory is both depressing and inspiring but, since I’m still on cloud nine after seeing a film as great as In a World…, I prefer to linger on the latter.
IN A WORLD …. Director: Lake Bell; Cast: Lake Bell, Fred Melamed, Michaela Watkins, Rob Corddry, Ken Marino, Demetri Martin, Tig Notaro, Nick Offerman, Alexandra Holden, Geena Davis, Eva Longoria; Distributor: Roadside Attractions
Rating: R; Opens: Friday at Living Room Theaters at FAU, The Classic Gateway Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Regal South Beach 18 and AMC Sunset Place in South Miami.