Over the last few months, I've reviewed films about homicidal anarchists, arranged marriages, cancer survivors, suicide bombers, Somali pirates, bourgeois paintings and harrowing life-or-death expeditions across the Pacific Ocean. Every once in a while, it's nice to take a break from all of that and review something SERIOUS!

In the hallowed pantheon of Hollywood entertainers, voiceover actors are a bit of a paradox. In an industry where so many rely heavily, or solely, on their looks for success, voiceover artists depend exclusively on their speaking skills to pay the bills. Stranger still, some of these unseen orators achieve a level of fame and success that rivals their more conspicuous colleagues; or at least their VOICES do.

You might not know their names, and you probably wouldn't know them if you ran into them on the street, but there are some voiceover artists whose voices would be as familiar to you as that of a beloved relative. (Some of them could likely do a solid impression of that relative, as well.) You may not know Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Peter Cullen, Billy West or John DiMaggio, but you DEFINITELY know Doctor Claw, Brain, Optimus Prime, Philip J. Fry and Bender B. Rodriguez - the latter two of recently-departed and much-lamented Futurama fame. These actors are all legends in the voiceover industry, but their undisputed king is the late, great Don Lafontaine.

Nicknamed "Thunder Throat" and "The Voice of God," LaFontaine's voiceover career was so ridiculously prolific that it would be easier to make a list of films for which he DIDN'T narrate the trailers. He was short, pudgy, bald and looked like a cross between your favorite uncle and Salvador Dali; but he had a voice which he once described, (appropriately enough, in a movie trailer), as "a deep voice that sounds like a seven-foot-tall man who has been smoking cigarettes since childhood." He had the ability to make any movie sound like the magnum opus of the film industry, usually introducing it with what would become his catchphrase: "In a world..."

In a World... is Lake Bell's, feature-length writing, directing and producing debut. This lighthearted dramedy follows Carol Solomon (Bell), an aspiring voiceover artist desperate to get away from her unsatisfying career as a dialect coach and break into the much more glamorous world of narrating film trailers. It would seem that nepotism is on her side. Carol lives with her father, Sam Soto (Fred Melamed), a legendary voiceover artist very much in the vein of Lafontaine. Unfortunately for Carol, Sam is a sexist pig.

While Sam takes some pride in seeing his daughter follow in his footsteps in a fashion, he regards film trailer narration as a "boys only" profession. He'd much rather his daughter stick to more gender-appropriate work like her dialect coaching and providing "funny voices" for commercials and cartoons. As if Sam weren't charming enough, he boots Carol out of the house so that his girlfriend, who is about the same age as Carol, can move in.

Just when it seems like things couldn't get any more tragic or gut-wrenchingly sexist, Carol's luck turns. She finds herself in the running to narrate a series of trailers for the epic, female-centric Amazon Games quadrilogy. Gustav Warner (Ken Marino), Carol's primary competition and her father's heir apparent, doesn't see her so much as competition as he does a potential sexual conquest. Of course, when the legendary Sam Soto hears that his beloved daughter might finally achieve the goal for which she's worked so hard, he looks deep within himself and finds the courage and humility to ...  audition for the role himself.

Solid performances all around coupled with Bell's superb writing and direction - plus a handful of unexpected and amusing celebrity cameos - make In a World... a sometimes tragic, sometimes touching and always hilarious directorial debut.

IN A WORLD..., opens Friday, Sept. 13, The Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett Ave., $4.50-$9, Tacoma, 253.593.4474