This week’s movie releases

US filmmaker Whit Stillman made his name in the 1990s with a trio of charming upper-middle class American comedies: Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco. Then... nothing. But now, after 13 years in the moviemaking wilderness — a chunk of which he spent in Madrid — he’s back at last with the delightful Damsels in Distress. Greta Gerwig stars as Violet, the head of a group of east-coast college girls who dedicate their free time to trying to help their fellow students by running a suicide prevention center and generally civilizing the uncivilized. Other plot tangents include a new dance craze called the sambola and salvation by pleasant-smelling soap. As you may be sensing, its singular whimsicality is likely to annoy as many as it amuses. But the playfulness is always at the service of a sweet humanity, uncynically extolling such old-fashioned virtues as tolerance and civility. A refreshing and uniquely humorous joy.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña play police officers patrolling LA in Training Day writer David Ayer’s action thriller End of Watch. The duo reportedly spent five months accompanying real cops on their rounds to prepare their characters, whose lives are put in peril when they uncover the secrets of a drug kingpin.

Taking you behind the gates of Saddam’s palace, The Devil’s Double tells the true story of Latif Yahia, the Iraqi army lieutenant ordered to become a double for the dictator’s playboy son. Brit actor Dominic Cooper plays both the psychotic Uday and his reluctant substitute, while Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) directs.

Another true tale of terror, Operación E stars Luis Tosar as the real-life Colombian farmer who in 2005 was handed the sick baby of a FARC hostage to care for under pain of death. Taking him downriver to seek medical attention, he remains oblivious to the boy’s importance as his quest leads him into a mire of trouble.

Tosar crops up again in Cesc Gay’s Una pistola en cada mano, whose cast list reads like a Who’s Who of Spanish-speaking acting talent. Ricardo Darín, Eduardo Noriega, Candela Peña, Eduard Fernández, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Javier Cámara, Jordi Mollà, Alberto San Juan and Leonor Watling all feature in this episodic relationship comedy.

Soccer seduction

Another romcom, Playing for Keeps stars Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the tale of a retired footballer coping with the advances of a bevy of soccer moms when he starts coaching his son’s team.

Meanwhile, French farce Le Chef features Jean Reno as a haute cuisine cook in conflict with the owner of his restaurant, who’s looking to bring in a young culinary genius to replace him.