Man Up is a funny and entertaining romantic comedy hinged on the performance of the actors and how they interpreted their characters. It's light, it's breezy and good fun. Where Trainwreck was trying to subvert the genre unsuccessfully, Man Up accepts it's position as a rom-com and makes the most of it.

The film's look immediately informs the viewer of it's tone: soft-lighting, a classical look for romantic comedies now forsaken. A large majority of the film's visual humour relies on visual comedy, so the soft-lighting lulls the viewer into a false sense of comfort before realising that they're laughing at very real modern circumstances. There is a hilarious visual gag including doorbells and cross-continuity editing during the otherwise disappointingly clichéd third act.

The visual comedy has to be credited to Ben Palmer, the director, but otherwise the jokes lie in the good script by newcomer Tess Morris. Ben Palmer's feature film before Man Up was the disappointing Inbetweeners 2 - but after this film, Tess and Ben are two to look out for. Of course, the main attraction and strongest element of the film is the cast.

Lake Bell is instantly likeable, deftly avoiding the pitfalls that surround her character's occasionally snarky attitude. Her comic delivery and reception is charming - I believe this is the first film in which Simon Pegg was outshone. Bell's English accent is perfect in it's subtlety, not falling into a clichéd Cockney or R.P accent (unsurprising after her excellent work in the entertaining indie comedy In A World). Rory Kinnear surprises with his an incredibly oddball performance - this coming from the man known as "that guy in those spy films who works for an agency" and the Prime Minister in the first Black Mirror episode.

Man Up is superior to most other contemporary rom-coms because it subverts expectations, not the genre as a whole. It falls into a sadly predictable third act, but the two first acts almost make up for that cardinal sin.