Lion’s Den is a film about mothers, love, devotion, and confinement. Julia wakes up in her apartment and discovers the bloodied bodies of two men: Her boyfriend and his lover. Having no recollection of what happened, she goes about her business until she is finally arrested and imprisoned. Centering on Julia’s attempt to keep the baby born while she is in prison, Trapero avoids the tropes associated with the women-in-prison genre. Neither exploitative nor sexy, the director also steers clear of moralizing or judging through Julia, and allows her to grow, though not necessarily to complete redemption. Touching on class, sexuality, violence, family, and society, Lion’s Den rises above all those individual issues to create a stunning portrait of one woman and all her facets. Ultimately the film never explains or justifies Julia, it simply allows her to be.