Growing up in, in part, all about finding your unique voice. So, it’s with a twinge of irony and slight chuckle that Lake Bell has set her story about a woman finding her place literally in the world of voice-over actors, specifically those epic actors who promo movies.
In a World, Bell’s directorial début, centers on thirty something Carol Solomon. Carol works as a freelance voice coach and longs to be a voice-over actor like her father, Sam. And Sam just so happens to be one of the kingpins of this niche world. More than anything else, Carol longs for her father’s approval and love, the tenderness of healthy parental encouragement and support. So, when the chance arrives to audition for a career-making gig, Carol finds herself is not only seeking her own voice but also competing again her greatest teacher.
Trying to find ones voice and calling is hard. Very few people early on in life know themselves well enough to embrace and trust the callings of their heart and passions. More often than not, we have to bumble through various curves and detours before we come to a place where we are able to love and embrace our true selves.
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This is especially true if those people who are supposed to encourage us to find our voices (ie. parents and/or parental figures) become instead the voices of woe and critique. As often can happen when one feels drawn to a field and calling where one’s parents are already working, they are no longer just your support system but can also become the personification of the doubt one has to overcome. At least that has been and continues to be the struggle for me as I have continued down similar career paths as both my parents.
I see in Carol and in her relationship with her father my own struggles with myself and with my parents. Carol is searching for a false sense of meaning and purpose because that is all that she has been given by her father. In the end, the calling Carol finds is one of personal purpose and meaning. She becomes rooted in who she is and thinks creatively about how to use her skills and talents to offer something meaningful to the world. In spite of all that is thrown in her way, Carol finds that what matters is meaning and purpose not dependent on her parents’ opinions. And isn’t this is what we are all seeking – a voice and calling which embraces our felt meaning and purpose independent of anyone else’s opinion of us or even our opinion of ourselves?
Furthermore, how do you create a space and name for yourself while standing in a parent’s shadow? I have grown up wanting to pursue art as the child of working artists; I find that I constantly struggle with the two-fold desire for parental approval and encouragement as well as wanting to create my own voice and artistic mark.
Our parents often are our first encounter with ideas of meaning and purpose. How they engage with them and us transforms what we believe about ourselves and our own calling. In A World is a story about a woman who is searching for voice and calling while living in the shadow of her father’s glory. As she travels through this journey she finds beauty and rest in a different place than she expects.