Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975) review

Sheila (Jeannie Berlin), who has a degree in Education (but seems to not want to use it), moves from Pennsylvania to NYC - against her parents' wishes - to live with spunky actress Kate (Rebecca Dianna Smith), lands a job with a record company (that makes recordings for children) and has a one-night stand with Dr. Sam Stoneman (Roy Scheider), except she gets too clingy, runs away from him, takes a trip back home (to Harrisburg) and then returns to the City where she finds out Sam is about to marry Kate.  The Gail Parent novel this is based on (which I have not read) is supposedly quite a hoot but this adaptation is grim and murky - it's shot like some depressive 'serious drama' and almost entirely devoid of laughs: the scene where Berlin, all dressed up in fancy new clothes, 'dances' for Scheider is particularly humiliating.  Naturally, the story is 'rigged' so that the subject and her love interest wind up together, and yet the entire time I mainly empathized with the Snoopy plushie, which appears as if it's in a state of total despair.