Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl Isn’t for the Birds; It’s a Tribute to Them

There’s a lot that humans can gain by heeding animal teachings: the joys of napping belly-up on your rug’s most sun-lit corner, the vitalizing effect of hauling ass after sticks in open fields, the harmonious comforts of sustained snuggling on the couch. Especially now, animal heedfulness of danger, seen and unseen, would be of value to most of us as we soldier through unprecedented times for the ninth year in a row. The key, of course, to benefitting from animal wisdom is actually listening to the goddamn animals. We rarely listen to each other. Why would we think to heed the cat’s warning yowls?

Mr. Whiskers is likely demanding a can of tuna, but he might be alerting us to threats we can’t detect ourselves. Post-viewing, the title of Rungano Nyoni’s sophomore movie, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, reads as encouragement as well as instruction: You should follow the bird’s example, and here’s how. “Becoming” is not to be taken literally. Nyoni works in her own sandbox and not the one constructed by Franz Kafka in 1915; her film orbits around the guinea fowl as an inspiring figure, one alluded to more so than present in the frame but whose function on the savannah resonates within the story’s patriarchal systems and insular traditions. If only generations past had a guinea fowl in their midsts to signal the flock of imminent abuses.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl begins slowly, relaxedly, as Shula (Susan Chardy) casually motors down a backroad under the blanket of night; she’s returning home from a party, gotten up in the iconic trash bag-cum-bedazzled helmet ensemble Missy Elliott rocked in 1997’s “Supa Dupa Fly” music video. With a casual glance out her window, Shula sees her uncle, Freddy, unexpectedly lying prone in the opposite lane. She calls her dad. She calls the authorities. She calls her mother. What she gets in return is her cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), several sheets to the wind over the standard three. When she meets with her aunties the next day, she then gets an earful for bathing, for lacking appropriate funeral garb, for working when she should be grieving her uncle’s death.

Shula’s unfussed reaction to Freddy’s demise is motivated by grim, unsavory secrets that rest in her extended family’s soul, corrupting all, from the people doggedly protecting it out of misplaced devotion to the dead, and to custom, to the people who likewise handle the news without so much as a shrug of the shoulder. Nyongi makes the truth explicit as On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’s plot unfolds, and laces the build-up to truth’s revelation with hints at what’s eating Shula, Nsansa, and their cousin Bupe (Esther Singini). Maybe the strongest clue the film provides is the aunties’ domineering pushback of the younger generation, who do not take to the old ways of doing things. Likewise the aunties do not appreciate what they see as rebellion among their children.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’s examination of generational riffs tends to side more with the successors than with the incumbents, which may be inevitable given what the former are railing against: a culture of hush hush, keep it down, voices carry, where heinous sin is swept under the rug like so much water saturating the halls of Bupe’s (Esther Singini) college dorm. Bupe is a third cousin, junior to Shula and Nsansa, the one who breaks the dam and unleashes the flood of sobering dread that forces the audience to rethink all of what Nyoni has shown them to that point. Victims express themselves individually: with silence, with carrying on, with technology. Each in their own way rings an alarm to draw their loved ones’ attention, but the attention comes slowly and reluctantly.

Nyoni avoids judgment; again, she relies on suggestion and trusts the viewer to perform the calculus on their own. If Shula, Nsana, and Bupe have suffered, it stands to reason that their mothers and aunts have, too, and kept their suffering quiet in accordance with the same traditions. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl details the ways tradition is exploited and warped, and to whom’s favor, gently at times, and with a steely edge at others. Shula confronts her dad (Henry B.J. Phiri), who spends the film carousing in clubs, away from his brother-in-law’s funeral. He dismisses her anger over the family’s directive that she stay mum, and then, in keeping with his role as comic relief, hits her up for money. But he hesitates when she storms away, picks up his phone, calls her, and asks her if Freddy hurt her, too.

She tells him no. He exhales in relief. But Nyoni shows us the lies through blocking. We can’t see Shula’s face, obscured between the floors of the club. We can only see her body, standing stock-still, betraying to the audience her falsehood. How can she speak her truth? How can anyone under the circumstances On Becoming a Guinea Fowl lays out? Take it from the bird: chirp loudly, and never shut up.

Director: Rungano Nyoni
Writer: Rungano Nyoni
Stars: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri, Blessings Bhamjee, Gillian Sakala, Carol Natasha Mwale, Loveness Nakwiza, Bwalya Chipampata, Stella Njolomba, Esther Singini
Release Date: March 14, 2025

Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers the movies, beer, music, and being a dad for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours. He has contributed to Paste since 2013. You can find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65% craft beer.