Onésime's Family Drama

Onésime enjoys a quiet, orderly life until an unexpected convoy of relatives arrives and moves in. At first their presence seems harmless, but soon the house is full of cousins, aunts, and uncles whose mannerisms and faces mirror Onésime in oddly comic ways. He tries small adjustments to keep some privacy, while the guests innocently disrupt his routines and amplify domestic absurdities. The film leans on sight gags and timing rather than plot twists, letting gesture, posture, and staging carry the humor as tensions rise and small misunderstandings generate a steady stream of laughs, all without revealing how the crowded situation is eventually resolved.

Directed by Jean Durand and released in 1914, the picture stars Ernest Bourbon as Onésime, with Gaston Modot among the cast. It was produced during France's early silent era, when short comedies were a staple of popular cinemas.

There are no reliable box office records for this 1914 release, and contemporary earnings aren't documented. Like many early films, financial details and distribution figures are scarce, so the movie's commercial reach is hard to measure today.

Though not widely known now, the film represents early French domestic slapstick, using family resemblance as a running gag. It offers an example of how comic setups depended on physical likeness and stagecraft, and it includes one of Gaston Modot's earlier screen appearances, before he went on to a longer career in European cinema.

Contemporary critical reaction is largely lost, and modern assessments are limited by the film's rarity. The movie centers on domestic intrusion, identity through appearance, and social etiquette overturned by crowding. Its humor comes from timing, body language, and carefully composed scenes, showing how silent-era filmmakers mined everyday situations for laughs without spoken dialogue.