Theorem

Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote and directed Theorem, released in Italy in 1968. The film centres on a bourgeois Milanese household whose orderly life is disrupted by the arrival of a young stranger. He becomes intimate with each member of the family in turn, including the mother, the father, the son, the daughter and the household servant, and then departs without explanation. His absence leaves each of them changed, and none can say who he was or why he came.

The cast includes Terence Stamp as the visitor, Silvana Mangano as the mother Lucia, Massimo Girotti as the father Paolo, Anne Wiazemsky as the daughter Odetta, Andrés José Cruz Soublette as the son Pietro and Laura Betti as the servant Emilia. Produced by Manolo Bolognini and Franco Rossellini, it runs 95 minutes and mixes drama with mystery.

Theorem is the eighth of the fifteen films Pasolini directed, between The Witches and Pigsty. It holds a rating of 7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 17,000 votes and the same score on TMDB from roughly 460 votes. A critics' rating of 7.6 out of 10 from 30 reviews places it slightly above those audience scores.