This is a subtle story. The central character is a divorced woman in post-revolutionary Iran. Her recurrent argument is with her young son, angry about his parents' divorce. She is torn between her son and her desire for independence. The other characters, representing women at different stages of life, carry on the argument with the driver about women's role in society. This basic story is universal. The setting in the Islamic Republic adds to the conflict. The varieties of piety the women show is especially rich.

Most of the actors are not professionals, and much of the story is improvised. Part of the reason for telling the story so indirectly may be to work around Iranian censors. There are some surprisingly slow moments -- long shots watching a passenger wait for the driver to come back. Still, I think it works.

Yes, it's a gimmick: the entire film is shot from the dashboard of a car, and only the driver and the passenger are heard and (sometimes) seen. This gimmick will not please everyone, and hardly qualifies the film as a masterpiece. But Hitchcock's brilliant "Rear Window" was a gimmick too, and Kiarostami's "10" is no less worthy of attention. A movie has to be done well, regardless of its tricks, and "10" fits the bill. The driver of the car also drives the conflict; she is a recently divorced Iranian woman in a country in which women barely have the right to divorce at all. As the city rushes past--it's great fun to watch the people and places outside--she curses the drivers and pedestrians along the way but holds her own against the crises in the passenger's seat. Funny thing about a car: it gives one the sense of control (here, that's clearly an illusion) and the oxymoronic ability to remain private even while out in public. She and her women passengers air their grievances within this zone of safety; a scene in which a passenger slowly removes her head covering, a symbol of repression, is moving and unsettling. The greatest conflict, however, is between the driver and her young son, who's bitter about the divorce and lets his mother unravel until he, not she, controls where the car is heading. The boy's performance is astonishingly real, as much for the way he fills the silences as for his sharp and sometimes humorous counterpoints. The film could have done without the "countdown" of the 10 conversations--the source of the title--but no matter: everything in between is a delight.

8 out of 10