How does an avowed bibliophile and cinephile reconcile the broad chasm between the two fascinations, particularly when it comes to a film adaptation of a beloved novel?

Short answer? She doesn't.

I've heard before all the arguments regarding the need to compartmentalize books and movies, even if the latter is "based on" the former. After all, the resources available to filmmakers, and the directorial vision, indeed promote the apples-versus-oranges argument. But a small, wistful part of me yearns for adaptations that hold some of the same magic of the books.

I was so excited when I discovered that Gail Parent's novel Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York had been made into a movie in the 1975. Even more fascinating: Sheila was played by Jeannie Berlin, known best for her role as the cuckolded Jewish-American princess bride in 1972's The Heartbreak Kid. (A remake was made in 2007 starring Ben Stiller; this critic has not yet screened this version of the Neil Simon vehicle.)

The first warning flag should have been that the movie isn't available on DVD, or even VHS. I found it on Amazon Unbox, a pretty nifty little service, incidentally. As an aficionado of all things 1970s – with a degree of experience pursuing out-of-print books and movies – I plunged ahead.

The 1972 novel is a spirited celebration of nihilism. Tired of negotiating singledom in 1960s New York, frumpy Jewish-American princess Sheila Levine has made a suicide pact with herself. Chronicling each dismal step of her flaccid romantic life, Sheila plans to end it by her 30th birthday. Along the way, she accidentally starts living. But the end isn't so much a triumph as it is an ambiguity; she lives, certainly, but is still cracking jokes about having to get her stomach pumped and cancel her burial plot.

It's not like films this dark weren't made in the 1960s and '70s. I expected some hearty gallows humor, a broad Bronx accent and some hip "That Girl" fashions. Instead, I found Jeannie Berlin a pretty but colorless heroine in a completely rewritten story. In the movie, there is no death pact. There is a milquetoast love triangle of Sheila, a cute-ish doctor she meets at a party (Roy Scheider), and Sheila's roommate, a ditzy wannabe actress (Rebecca Dianna Smith). Sheila is embarrassingly naïve; the supporting characters, embarrassingly stereotypical.

Clearly, my hopes were too high.

On its own, the movie is cute, if bland. Sheila is determined to make it on her own in New York despite the stunted love affair with cute-ish Dr. Sam. She takes a "creative" job, as a typist with a children's record company. She throws a party.

Then, her younger sister gets married, clearly a clarion call of crisis for single girls in the 1960s or '70s. She arrives back home with a drag-queen-worthy makeover, intent on winning over Dr. Sam – only to find that he is marrying her pregnant roommate.

If ever there was cause for a good girl of a certain generation to commit suicide, this was it.

Yet, somehow, she pulls herself up by her bootstraps. Her voice loses that nasal monotone, and she begins to find meaning in her work. And Dr. Sam leaves her roommate, falls in love with her, and proposes.

And feminists everywhere squawk in indignation.

Most movies about the young, single woman out to "find herself" – from Georgy Girl (1966) to Bridget Jones (2001) – insult our intelligence. This is mainly because finding oneself is usually synonymous with finding a good man. There's nothing wrong with that, feminist or not. It's the battery of assumptions that accompany this line of thinking: the professional incompetence, the frumpiness, the overarching societal disapproval.

That's why the novel's Sheila is so much more worthy of admiration than the film's Sheila. The first Sheila found humor in her life, and her nondeath. She rose above the expectations of a generation that had little faith in the fortitude of women. The second Sheila – it's a lot easier to laugh at her than with her.

On the bright side, the 1970s-ness of this movie is an entertainment boon. The cheesy music, poor lighting and pop-culture artifacts are priceless. It's the kind of movie you want to make up a drinking game for.

Still, the bibliocinephile in me waits for an adaptation that works. Rosemary's Baby (1968) did. Maybe Julie and Julia (2009) will.

Despite the odds, I'll keep my fingers crossed.