Details: The Shooting Gallery release is unrated. One hour, 18 minutes.

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Review: A revealing moment in the Iranian film "The Day I Became a Woman" comes in the second of its three short stories, about a woman who defies her husband's order to stop riding a bicycle.

The young woman (Shabnam Toloui) begins to pedal harder to elude the furious spouse, who has pursued her on horseback. As she picks up speed, the wind catches her black cloak and she must clutch it to her body to keep it from flying away.

This illustrates the polarity of some Middle Eastern women who wish to advance their rights as individuals without discarding their traditions.

While the layers of dark cloth that adorn the actresses may seem repressive in America, director Marzieh Meshkini has said she objects to foreigners questioning the garb.

"I never ask the people asking those questions why they are wearing whatever they are wearing," Meshkini says. "What I wear represents what my countrywomen wear."

It's important to keep such things in mind rather than succumb to the popular assumption that this apparently restrictive clothing is the main oppression suffered by these women.

Meshkini raises the idea that there are far more subtle issues of thought and behavior at stake. Western audiences should have no trouble identifying with the themes of the movie, as most people at one point or another feel pressure to cling to the ways of the past while forging their own futures.

"The Day I Became a Woman" follows one crucial day in the lives of three women of various ages, beginning with the child, Havva, who is about to turn 9 and thus pass into adulthood.

This means her flower-print dress and head must be covered by dark scarves and fraternizing with local boys is now forbidden.

The girl, played by the cherubic Gatemeh Cheragh Akhtar, pleads with her mother and grandmother for a few hours to play with a boy by the seashore.

"Cover your hair. Don't sin," the grandmother replies, trying to maintain a harsh facade. Eventually the older women relent: Maybe Havva wasn't born until noon, and since it's only 11 a.m., she has an hour to play as a girl.

She is ordered to return when the sun is at its zenith, which she will measure by the shadow of a twig. This is easily the most heartbreaking of the three stories as we watch her count down to the end of her youth, the loss of her friend and the bridling of her spirit.

The third story follows an elderly woman on a spending spree and the young boy hired to push her wheelchair and organize her caravan of extravagant purchases.

Azizeh Seddighi plays the woman, who ties strings to her fingers to remind her of what she wants to buy. Her fingers are barely visible under the all of little strings, and she can't remember what they all stood for.

The boy (Badr Irouni Nejad) leads her through shopping malls as she collects a refrigerator, a stove, bedroom furniture, vacuum cleaner and dozens of other appliances and amenities.

Where does she get the money? he asks. It doesn't matter, she tells him. She just wants to own everything that she was forbidden in her youth.

And what was that last string on her finger supposed to remind her to do?

She ponders this while sitting on a beach, the appliances strewn about the sand as the boys helping her haul them around town play drumbeats on them.

With freewheeling independence surrounding her, it's the impossible-to-achieve thing she needs the most.