ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL - Mark Reviews Movies

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 6, 2025

Uncle Fred is dead. At the start of On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, the man's niece finds his body lying in the middle of a road late one night while she's driving home from a party. If it was up to the niece, she'd probably ignore it, keep driving, and assume that someone else will take care of the problem of her dead uncle. That's the way it seems, at least, and as we learn more about exactly how and why the uncle is a problem beyond his inconvenient death, we realize the niece has done more for her dead uncle than any rational person would expect her to do.

That niece is Shula (Susan Chardy, in an impressive debut performance), and the whole of the film is seen from her perspective. The story exists in the present, after Shula arranges for the retrieval of Uncle Fred's body and as she navigates the assorted necessities of the funeral for a family a member, and in the past, because Shula and other some other relatives have been keeping a secret about their uncle. It's not as much a secret as any of them believed, however, and that's one of the many tragic components and sources of anger within writer/director Rungano Nyoni's impassioned film.

At its core, this is a story about family, although we soon learn that this particular family, a middle-class one in Zambia, is essentially divided into two factions. The first comprises those who know what kind of person Uncle Fred was—and, because his actions have so damaged and traumatized these family members, remains in their mind—and won't say anything about it, out of worry of not being believed or fear of some repercussion against them. The other group is made up of those who know what kind of person Uncle Fred was—and, since he's dead, only "was" now—and won't say anything about it, out of worry of ruining his reputation and fear of bringing shame to the entire family.

The one thing they all share here, of course, is a knowledge or, at least, a significant suspicion about what Uncle Fred has done—repeatedly and to many girls, both in the family and outside it. Shula won't say it directly to anyone. Her cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), who just happens to be driving down the same road shortly after Shula calls the police to come pick up Uncle Fred's corpse, will only say it after she's had a lot a drink. Even then, she changes vital details to make it seem like less of a deal than it actually was—and still is to her.

Another cousin named Bupe (Esther Singini), currently a student at the local university, has found her own way of telling the truth about Uncle Fred, and even as she recuperates in the hospital, the young woman's own mother refuses to listen to what could have been her daughter's final words. Would it be too difficult for the mother to realize what her years—possibly decades—of denial have wrought, or would it simply be too difficult for her to continue those denials with such a definitive, unavoidable piece of evidence?

Does it need to be said what Uncle Fred has done? Nyoni's film only tells us as much as we need to know, and that is the correct and wise choice for this particular story. It's not about the sexual abuses Uncle Fred has committed. It's about the pain of the survivors of that violence lingering—not only because of what the man did to them, but also because no one else in the family will listen to them, acknowledge that truth, and do anything about Uncle Fred, even now that he is dead.

The structure of Nyoni's screenplay is fairly loose, as it follows Shula through the funeral, taking place in the home where her mother (played by Doris Naulapwa) now lives alone. Uncle Fred was the mother's younger brother, and as other family members arrive, they put on a grand show of mourning—wailing and praying and crying out at the injustice that Uncle Fred was taken from the world too soon. If there is any sincerity to these displays of grief, Nyoni cuts through them in short order, as Shula's aunts question how the niece can look so calm and collected after finding her uncle's body, certain mourners turn off the waterworks to start gossiping about this relative or another, and Shula suddenly discovers that Uncle Fred's widow is in the house, too. This comes as surprise, not only because that Shula hasn't seen her uncle's wife amidst the crowd, but also since she had no idea Uncle Fred had married.

Indeed, the entire grieving process here takes on an unexpectedly sinister level once we do meet the widow, named Chichi (Norah Mwansa). Shula probably doesn't notice the widow, because, while Uncle Fred died in his 50s, his wife is even younger than any of the man's nieces (There's a nauseating scene in which Shula goes to the uncle's home and does the math of the children there). Is that part of the reason the rest of Shula's family treat her so poorly? They publicly blame her for not tending to his health, but there must be more to the family pushing Chichi and her family into secluded parts of the house and outside it. If no one can see proof of what Uncle Fred has done, they can ignore it, just as they don't speak of what he did to their own daughters and nieces.

That's just the behavioral aspect of the story, which Nyoni depicts with unsettling specificity as the film progresses. In practice and form, the tale takes on the qualities of a claustrophobic nightmare, with crowded rooms of people dismissing or demanding things of Shula, the cousins resigned to the pantry to evade the family, and other moments, such as spaces flooding and Shula's efforts to get a car out of the packed driveway, that feel surreal or downright absurd.

Such an approach is appropriate, too, because On Becoming a Guinea Fowl does play like an increasingly disturbing nightmare. It's a powerful story about silence, denial, pushing the blame, and feigned ignorance, as well as how all those things become a form of abuse, too.

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