I Hired a Contract Killer (1990) review

Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is single and living alone in England when he learns he's lost his job at Her Majesty's Waterworks, so he decides to end it all - first he buys rope to hang himself (which fails), then he tries putting his head in the oven (he's no Sylvia) and finally he puts a hit out on himself (after having gotten the idea from a newspaper article), but once he meets flower girl Margaret (Margi Clarke) he realizes he doesn't want to die.  Even though it runs a trim eighty minutes, the appeal of this 'quirky' story gets quite stale by the midway point as Henri has to repeatedly dodge his would-be assailant (Kenneth Colley) ... who just happens to be dying himself.  The same 'message' - that 'giving up' is the wrong way out - was best summarized by Dorothy Parker in a poem written a long time ago, and Kaurismäki believes that tobacco, alcohol, rock and roll (Joe Strummer, the late frontman for The Clash, makes a brief appearance) and the company of a pretty lady is enough to push through the tough parts.