Jorge Grau creates what Variety calls “a slick suspenser with a fine production gloss” in a unique format; as one Spanish critic put it, “In the simple act of raising a glass to the lips lies a whole life. Not only Ana's dramatic present, but her past and her uncertain future reveal themselves to the spectator in this brief instant.” A woman meets her married lover at an expensive restaurant; over dinner, he tells her he is ending their affair. Her first reaction--running to the arms of another lover--is shown to be purely imagined as the film returns to the restaurant, and the undrunk wine; subsequent sequences reveal other alternatives, including murder, and only the film's open-ended finale reveals the “truth.” Grau states, “In La Cena I wanted to convey that tremendous anxiety of those things which don't happen, all that which is potentially, in a few moments, the key to the life of human beings....all these things, in some way, have their own life within us, although we may remain quiet, immobile, seated in a chair....”