Thanks for the memories!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

In a World . . . is the directorial debut of the star Lake Bell (How to Make it in America, Million Dollar Arm). Bell plays an aspiring voice-over artist competing against her own father played by Fred Melamed (A Serious Man, New Girl), to get the role of trailer announcer ("In a world . . . gone mad . . . ONE MAN, and so on). Ken Marino (The State, Wanderlust) is the alpha male narrator-for-hire. He can't act but he's a funny guy. Fred Melamed fills the scenes like his body fills a suit. It's a film about feminism, family, and "the industry." It shows you a rarely seen world. The world of voice-over artistry is not all that exciting, but it has Nick Offerman (Parks and Rec, The Men Who Stare at Goats) and it's funny. In a World . . . definitely had it's moments.Where it lost me was the hackneyed romantic subplot. This production was brought to you by the Silverlake clique, so it had hipster comic Demetri Martin as the dorky-sweetie love interest. I hate the way so many modern romcoms tell guys that pathetic nerds are "good guys" who get the girl. Is it so bad to be cool? I digress . . . This picture made Sundance official selection. If you like independent film for the freshness and originality, or if you're a woman trying to make it in a man's world, if you can't get enough of Lake Bell, or if you dad is a niche Hollywood legend with a stereotypical shiksa goddess groupie, this is your film.

Fans of movies will instantly recognize the title as the introduction to almost every movie trailer made in the 1980s, as famously vocalized by Don LaFontaine. This movies captures the small and competitive world of voice-over "artists" anxious to become the next big name in the business, and specifically the lead's attempt to become the first female to reach the pinnacle of the profession and to replace her father and his hand-picked (male) protégé.Lake Bell, the star, writer and director of this movie has created an interesting world of quirky characters and witty dialog although not a film without flaws. However the flaws are not so great, and the movie is so original that it merits a recommendation for you to take a chance on it.

Lake Bell quite nicely wrote the story to incorporate the important aspects of the voice-over industry, which most people take quite for granted. There's the main focus of targeting the highest levels at the blockbuster movie trailer voice-overs. But there's also the lesser extent of commercials voice-overs and even vocal coaching. The main conflict that ultimately pits an overachiever father with his own denied protégé of a daughter nicely sums up the story. Yet I feel that the side conflict with Louis and the thing with Moe and Dani is rather unfinished that it only feels like it's there to eat up duration. The acting side is a standard overall. Lake Bell did quite alright in walking in the shoes of Carol. But I think that the rest of the characters are only doing enough to make it a connected story, offering nothing more. Though for me, Lake Bell should also receive extra credit for doing three jobs of acting in a lead role herself, directing the movie and also writing the screenplay.

Lake Bell is appealing in the lead role as Carol, an aspiring voice-over artist, and as writer/director she's come up with a unique variation on a familiar indie formula: 30-something slacker gets kicked out of the nest. There's a lot going on—Michaela Watkins and Rob Corddry as Carol's sister and brother-in-law get a whole little romcom to themselves—but Carol's various struggles, professional, romantic and familial, mesh together very well. The cast is impressive: nice to imagine that somebody would cast Eva Longoria as a Cockney gangster's moll (though not in this movie, I'm glad to say), and Geena Davis turns up briefly as a studio exec who delivers a crucial message, maybe THE crucial message. Fuzzy, flabby Fred Melamed ("A Serious Man") is definitely the go-to guy when you need an overbearing a••hole, though Ken Marino seemed a little too cartoony as Carol's voice-over rival—more like an escapee from a Christopher Guest movie. Wouldn't have minded seeing more more about the worrrrld of Hollywood voice artists and dialect coaches; it's refreshing to watch a film where the characters do something real and don't just have vague glamour jobs as lawyers or architects (mainstream) or toil away as peons on a cube farm (indie). Available on streaming Netflix.