Any suggestion that the companion piece to director Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, his disturbing documentary on the state-supported mass killings undertaken for Indonesia’s Suharto regime, could actually be a more troubling film might seem surprising. The Act of Killing was extremely unnerving. The Look of Silence is even more distressing, even more frightening. Inong, a death-squad leader interviewed in the new film, chillingly says, “if we didn’t drink human blood, we would go crazy.”

As its title might suggest, Christian Schwochow’s West (Westen) takes us back to the time of Germany divided. It's almost a chamber piece, catching the very particular experiences of a woman and her young son who leave East Berlin and end up in a refugee centre in the city’s American sector, where they’re forced to reappraise their expectations of what their new life in the West will be.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Winston Churchill’s famous words on Russia serve as a very apt verdict on Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bai ri yan huo), the third film from Chinese director Diao Yinan. Its noir detective style pays homage to classic Hollywood tropes, but this is an unapologetically arthouse piece that impresses most for its gloriously dark visuals: it certainly captivated last year’s Berlinale jury, winning the Golden Bear there over Richard Linklater's Boyhood and other more approachable fare.

In Hope and Glory, John Boorman revisited the Blitz-battered London of his childhood, and managed to find infectious humour and optimism among the wreckage. Now, 28 years later, he travels back to the early Fifties for this belated sequel, depicting a Britain still exhausted from the European war while the conflict in Korea hinted at a different and scary new world.

Artists can be selfish bastards. Yoko Ono didn’t pay her babysitters; Bob Dylan has frozen out nearly all his friends; Norman Mailer stabbed his wife, and William Burroughs shot his. Philp (Jason Schwartzman), the young novelist who sociopathically meanders through Alex Ross Perry’s new film, causes no fatalities. Which is where his positive qualities peter out. Whether contemplating his navel to Ph.D level, or harbouring petty grudges and explosive rages which would shame a two-year-old, Philip may be cinema’s most rampantly temperamental artist.

Time gets called on California in San Andreas, a bone-headed disaster movie that sends huge swathes of the West Coast toppling to its doom even as one particular family not only makes it through intact but is even enriched in the process. Who'd have thought that the demise of several cities full of unnamed people would act as a perverse sort of marriage counselling for a couple in nuptial distress?

American actress Lake Bell turns in a rather charming performance in a romcom written by newcomer Tess Morris, who handles the insecurities of a thirty-something woman looking for love in a funny and energetic way.

There's a manic screwball edge to the comedy and some witty one-liners but also present are some of the worst pitfalls of this genre. The Inbetweeners director, Ben Palmer, takes the reins in a film which dashes across famous London landmarks and the back roads of suburban England with verve. When Nancy (Lake Bell) is gifted a romantic self-help book by a woman on a train who’s due to meet a blind date at Waterloo station she becomes embroiled in a case of mistaken identity. She takes a chance, steals her blind date, a forty-something man named Jack (Simon Pegg) and ends up having a wonderful time.

There's some Richard Curtis-style surface level humour in the supporting characters who fill the desperate weirdo quota

That is, until he finds out she's not who she says she is and they wind up on an incredibly awkward double date with his ex. Morris and Palmer inject the first half of the date with a spontaneity that superbly captures the excitement of meeting a potential suitor who could end up to being the one. Morris also does a fantastic job of making her lead characters as fully rounded as possible within the constraints of the romantic comedy formula. Though there's some Richard Curtis-style surface level humour in the supporting characters who fill the desperate weirdo quota, her two leads are brilliantly sketched.

Jack is suffering from a broken heart, his bitter ways and head-in-the-clouds attitude threatening to ruin his chances of finding a new partner. We first meet Nancy in a hotel psyching herself up to attend a wedding reception: she's working on her self-esteem and confidence via a handy to-do list which includes getting stronger thighs. Morris makes Nancy a wholly relatable character and nicely balances her cynicism with a healthy dose of sincere positivity. Olivia Williams appears as Jack’s soon to be ex-wife in a role that doesn't really offer much other than a stereotype. Considering Morris makes fun of the fact that Jack is initially set up with a 24-year-old it's a bit odd that he eventually finds a romantic connection with someone 10 years his junior and younger than his ex.

Still, it's better than the alternative and backs up the idea within the film that there is no special recipe in the quest for a partner. It's all about the spark. Lake Bell’s British accent is spot on and her ability to switch between cracking jokes and emotionally wrought is impressive indeed. Simon Pegg is finely tuned to the everyman character and his performance recalls his endearing early work from Shaun of the Dead. They make for an amiable pairing in a hugely enjoyable and fast-paced comedy.

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Overleaf: watch the trailer for Man Up