Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

As always with Pasolini, we get clumsy acting, dialogue and camera work, though here the story is so important and vital that I've given it more stars than it aesthetically deserves. A stranger appears within a wealthy Italian family, is seduced/seduces each of them--old and young, women and men--and they are all changed by his (its) presence. Though Terence Stamp is perfect physically for the androgynous/bisexual angel, he is a bit adrift among Pasolini's amateurish melodramatic and kitschy handling of film-making. I recommend it ONLY for the brave and rare portrayal of Connection/Love as genderless

Pasolini has created a more serious and complex version of the 1930's classic "Boudu Saved From Drowning" in which a mysterious figure descends on a household of bourgeois people in Milan, a household whose members struggle with all sorts of psychological and religious issues. In this case we have no idea who the mystery person is, indeed the family just seem to accept him. Over the course of the film the stranger manages to have sexual and loving relationships with everyone from the maid to the father of the household. The young son struggling with homosexuality, the maid caught up in a virginal religious state, a besotted young teen daughter, the mother with unfulfilled sexuality and the father struggling with his bourgeois attitudes to human capital and homophobia. The stranger disappears as mysteriously as he arrived and the family goes into a perverse decline, other than the son who becomes an artist influenced by Francis Bacon, the English artist who represented many homosexual images of his own relationships in his striking art (as seen in a book featured in the movie). Each member seems to have been touched by some strange religious experience, left to come to terms with their perversions and fears. The film is often seen as representing the trans-formative act of religion with some being touched by the hand of god and others continuing their worst attitudes and behaviour. The father leaves his factory to his workers, the teen goes into a catatonic state, the maid becomes a healer and mystic destined for an unusual death, the son a talented artist and the mother increasingly and uncontrollably lustful despite constant religious images impinging on her senses. The father symbolically casts off all bourgeois elements by stripping naked in public. Video references keep crossing to some strange desert landscape, whose meaning only becomes apparent at the end like some scene from hell. What is often ignored is the camera-work which is often tracking across the top of many scenes almost as if it is searching for some truth. Really an amazing movie requiring a lot of work and thought from the viewer.

This is great, but I'm not sure if for the reasons usually cited.Yes, there is a fable here, a mysterious man upsets balances in a bourgeois household. Yes, it is from those times -Bunueltimes, Godardtimes- when the word 'bourgeois' was meant quite vehemently. It is symbolically abstruse throughout about empty lives and the quest for meaning.But, I think as with these people depicted on desperate journeys to fulfillment, the more you cling to the search for meaning as a viewer and try to boil it down to something that makes sense, the more you end up with just an allegory about the failure to do it. For all I know, that was Pasolini's intention, echoed loudly in the parting cry for god in the wilderness.No matter. Me and him mean wholly different things by emptiness. What captivates me here is the free form of the narrative, the cinematic eye that places you as transparent observer in the same world as these people, not easy to accomplish this at all, and the journey through cracks of story to the wondrous emptiness of everything (trees, sunlight, concrete, people) languidly floating in space together.It is in the same direction as Antonioni, though hampered by allegory. It invigorates the senses like he does. And the eye is tuned to the same architecture of empty space as seen in L'Eclisse and Blowup.Pasolini may have meant this as lament or indictment. I get the same melancholy joy as from Japanese woodblocks.

You may call me a seasoned film watcher who is willing to ponder over the possible intentions of the narrative. However, to me the film Teorema is devoid of any rational or logical meaning. A possible label of the style is surrealism, but surrealists employ a certain realism, albeit twisted, accuracy and precision. The story of Teorema is too sloppy and incoherent for that. Perhaps the best description is to compare the story to (post)modern art, which carries a similar message of laziness, fraud and swindle. In order to warn you, let me briefly sketch the events. The main characters are a bourgeois family, consisting of two parents, a son, a daughter and a housekeeper. A friend of the son visits the family, and starts sexual relations with everybody, except perhaps the father. He does not seduce them, but simply yields to their wishes. When he leaves, the inmates admit that their lives have been shattered. The housekeeper becomes a saint with divine powers, and finally merges with the earth. This daughter gets into a state of coma. The mother becomes a promiscuous nymphomane. The male characters develop the most interesting signs of disorder. The father wants to go back to his inner self. He gives his possessions to his employees, undresses, and runs into the desert. The son becomes a painter, who hides his lack of skills under a mask of conceit. There are certainly allusions in the film, but none of them takes the lead. For instance, it is possible that the painter is meant to portray the film maker, but the evidence is poor. Evidently, the film in itself makes no sense whatever, so that we have to base our interpretation on other sources. It was made in the days of la nouvelle vague, which produced films like "Tout va bien" (France) and "De minder gelukkige terugkeer van Joszef Katus naar het land van Rembrandt" (Netherlands). These stories are somewhat mysterious, and invite the viewer to make his own interpretation. The viewer is supposed to become a participant, and in fact the players sometimes directly address the audience. Typical for the nouvelle vague is also the moving camera. In Teorema these ideas are carried through to the extreme, leading to the above bizarre result. Another source is the Italian society. In those days she was a bizarre mixture of Bolshevism and Catholicism. A film maker had to address both cultures in order to create a commercial success. The only way to please both audiences is to say nothing, and this is precisely what Teorema does. Both the Bolshevists and Catholics are appeased by the display of their symbols, and the Catholics are only mildly provoked, suggesting that Pasolini is one of theirs. In fact the catholic spirit permeates most Italian films, even "La terra trema", which is supposed to be a socialist produce. You can not wipe out two millenia of history in a view decades. In conclusion, even the context of Teorema does not allow a satisfactory interpretation. The film can be seen as a glorification of Catholicism, socialism, promiscuity, art and culture, Freudian psychology, or simple life. Perhaps the wrath of God is actually the best explanation for the events. However, in another interpretation it is a plea for fascism or chastity. Or perhaps it is a self-portrait of the makers, and the chaos in their brains. Or the chaos of the (any) elite, which would be alarming. Only one thing is certain: Teorema is innovative. But not every innovation is an improvement. If you prefer social realism, consider seeing my other reviews.