Middleburg Review: “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, 2024) 3½ out of 5 stars

Despite its increasingly distressing revelations as it goes along, the new film On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, from writer/director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch), is filled with many small moments of quiet humor, courtesy of fine performances and sharp dialogue. Starring model-turned-actress Susan Chardy as Shula, a Zambian woman recently returned home from working abroad, the movie starts with a bit of a shock: a dead man in the middle of the road. Soon however, in this intimate study of twisted family politics and sexual abuse, that corpse will be the least disturbing plot element of them all.

The body, as it turns out, belongs to Shula’s Uncle Fred, an apparent pillar of the local community. Or at least that’s what the many members of his large extended family claim. Shula’s cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), however, gets a big kick out of the fact that Fred was most likely visiting a nearby brothel before he collapsed from a heart attack. She, Shula, and another cousin, Bupe (Esther Singini), all share a common secret, which will slowly come to light over the course of the narrative. They know more about the true nature of Fred than their aunts—so vocal in their plaintive wails of grief—want to admit.

Recurring throughout is the motif of the guinea fowl, a bird that is effective at warning both its own kind and other prey species about a predator’s approach. We return, time and again, to Shula’s flashback of a children’s show that gradually explains how the bird, native to the African continent, behaves. Little by little, we begin to realize its connection to the movie in front of us.

As these things go, rarely do families like to air out their dirty laundry. There is power in group unity, a power that includes wealth and property. No one has room for mercy, as witnessed by how Fred’s family treats his widow and young children, insisting that they end up with nothing from the deceased. This means, however, that no one is ready to entertain the truth about the sexual predator in their midst.

Nyoni builds tension in a variety of ways, using Shula’s status as quasi-outsider (given her time away) adding important perspective. Some elements work better than others. There’s a repeating flood visual that is either overused or not used enough; it’s unclear how much, if any, of the water is metaphorical and how much real. The scenes with Shula’s father—always at a party—have an almost dreamlike quality that confuses. Though there is nothing wrong with dramatic ambiguity, it’s hard to grasp the full import of sequences when they land a little too opaquely.

But the net result proves mostly powerful. The story may be set in Zambia, but the central crisis is universal. Especially now, when patriarchy and conservative mores are raising their ugly head more and more, a film like On Becoming a Guinea Fowl calls attention to the nasty end point of their unsavory advance. You have been warned; heed the cry.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, as well as Film Festival Today's Editor. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.