I had no idea the movie A Single Man was a black comedy, even after reading several reviews.
I especially enjoyed the sequence in which the protagonist, George, fusses with his pillow so as to get comfortable enough to shoot a gun into his mouth. Like, can you really get comfortable enough to kill yourself? It’s a conceit that reminded me of Samuel Beckett. (Other nice tells: the bomb shelter insert, the golden shower revenge fantasy, putting the parting gift to his housekeeper inside the package of sliced bread she likes to keep in the freezer.)
Not that the movie is fully confident with its sense of humor. For instance, the music, while excellent, pushes it towards a solemnity that the plot and much of the dialogue defies. It’s as if there were two directors or, perhaps more likely, two different points of view in the production as to how the movie would play out with audiences.
If so, I wonder who pushed for the comedy and who for the tragedy?