When it comes to talking gender politics, the conversation should be anything but lukewarm. For both good and bad, however, that's the exact feel of Jamie Babbit's Itty Bitty Titty Committee. One part politics and the other part kitsch, the film thematically meanders between saying something important about womanhood as seen in society and also reiterating every other belabored love story in cinematic history. It's alternatingly original and hackneyed, and although the film is fun, it's ultimately innocuous.

Diffident and depressed, Anna (Melonie Diaz) works at a breast augmentation center, watching here and at home, as her older sister prepares for a wedding, society's trappings for womanhood pass her over. Having broken up with her girlfriend and missed the chance to get into college, she lumbers through days in a shy haze. On cue enters Sadie (Nicole Vicius) who with her extreme feminist ideology invites Anna into the world of Clits in Actions, C(i)A. Made up of the hyper-intellectual Shuli (Carly Pope), resigned artist Meat (Deak Evgenikos) and sweet-hearted though easily ignored Aggie (Lauren Mollica), the group pulls socially forward thinking pranks that highlight issues and injustice in understandings of gender. As Anna and Sadie begin to explore an attraction, complicated by Sadie's long-term relationship with feminist activist Courtney (Melanie Mayron), the C(i)A slowly falls apart, its politics confused with the personal bonds that each of the girls shares.

Much of the rhythm of the film depends on Tina Mabry and Abigail Shafran's script. While they do speak politics with little hesitancy, particularly through the character of Shuli, Mabry and Shafran try to undercut the didactic nature of the ideas by creating a simple framework of confusion, namely the Anna-Sadie romantic complication. The attempt fails in that there's little compelling about either Anna or Sadie individually and much less even when they're together. That's not to say that Diaz and Vicius don't put a full effort into their performances but rather that as written Anna and Sadie's characters are flat. As Anna travels from diffident and depressed to the opposite extreme of the defiant "riot grrrl" lifestyle, Sadie falls into an emotional monotone. With one performance so full of contrast and the other so entrenched in one layer of emotional communication, the nuances of feelings are entirely absent. It's just very difficult to believe that either character has a real grounding with each other or themselves and therefore also difficult to believe they'd be in love. Much more interesting are the stylizations and nuances of Pope, Evgenikos and Mollica simply because their characters are given the space to explore real emotion. There's a viciousness, tenderness and forgiveness displayed in small moments by each of these three focused actresses, and none of those qualities show up in the space between page and performance for Diaz and Vicius. The cumulative effect is of watching a love story with the two least interesting characters in the film.

That's not to say, however, the watching the film's sheer sexiness isn't interesting. With a prolific background in television, Babbit offers up stylized and quick cut sex scenes that capture that passion absent in Anna and Sadie's dialogue-driven interactions. With a clear command of the framing and cuts, Babbit uses these sequences as a distinct authorial mark. Along with that, she also intercuts well-placed montages throughout that serve to increase the momentum of the film, giving information about the characters while also painting their lifestyle as amusingly subversive.

The film ends on as self-conscious note, however, its kitsch brought to the forefront with the ultimate, bonding prank of the C(i)A. There's a feel of, "This film is well-crafted and essentially juvenile," and that's by no means a negative comment. In an odd way, while talking about gender politics, Itty Bitty Titty Committee is most groundbreaking in that it's not groundbreaking at all. It's just a film like any other film, and while it doesn't stand out, it serves an underrepresented community in the same fashion in which mainstream communities are represented.