On Becoming a Guinea Fowl Is a Painful Chronicle of Abuse and Silence

It’s a difficult film to watch.

The publicity for Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl describes it as a comedy or black comedy; Rotten Tomatoes critic’s consensus says that it is “a vibrant exploration of family and social mores.”

Which really goes to show you should not trust RT’s critic consensus. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is not a funny movie; it’s not vibrant and it’s not a fun exercise in cultural tourism. It is a searing, bleak exploration of sexual assault, sexism, misogyny, and enforced family silence—made all the more harrowing by the fact that it is women who take it upon themselves to enforce patriarchy and cover up the victimization of their own children.

There are spoilers below if that matters to you. It really seems like a film where it’s insulting and even immoral to treat the secrets revealed as plot twists, and so I’m not going to do that.

The film’s protagonist is Shula (Susan Chardy), a young adult from a middle-class family in Zambia. Returning from a costume party, she sees her uncle Fred—her mother’s brother—lying dead on the road. She tries to call her hard-partying father for help to no avail. Then her drunk cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) shows up, staggering and giggling as Shula rolls her eyes and waits hours and hours for the cops.

You could see that as amusing, I guess, but it’s not really played for laughs. Instead, Nyoni’s slow pacing, and Shula’s lack of affect, makes her appear to be queasily, unnaturally disconnected from a family that seems to barely acknowledge her needs or the possibility that she has responsibilities, much less an inner life. As relatives gather for funeral arrangements, they tell Shula in no uncertain terms that her job is inconsequential, that she needs to grieve more elaborately so as not to embarrass them, that she needs to get up early, buy food, and race around serving everyone—especially her male relatives.

The dynamic is frustrating and oppressive from the get go. But things only get more unbearable as we learn that Fred, the dead man, systematically abused all of his female nieces, and any female child that got anywhere near him. This includes Nsansa and Shula. It also includes Fred’s widow, who he married when she was, at most, 12.

Rather than showing the widow sympathy, though, Shula’s family treats her as a pariah, insisting that she drove him to drink and neglect his children by not feeding him enough and not caring for him. Part of the motivation here is a battle over Fred’s property, though it also seems likely that the family blames the widow for the fact that it’s obvious Fred abused her.

This isn’t a horror film or an action film; there’s little in the way of suspense or gore. And yet, the family’s bland indifference to the suffering Fred caused, and the relentless petty demands on Sula—the demands, again, that she devote every waking moment to honoring the man who raped her—makes this a grim film to watch. Requests to make more food, to go pick up relatives at the airport, to cry more audibly—in short, all the norms of grieving—become a further perpetuation of abuse. It’s family dinner as a particularly intimate hell.

The conclusion of the film attempts to find some kind of catharsis. Shula and Nsansa and another, younger cousin discuss their abuse and comfort each other. Their aunties acknowledge their pain and tell them they love them.

Unfortunately, the comfort feels a lot less convincing than the indifference. The aunts never actually apologize for covering up Fred’s horrific abuse. Nor do they admit that their treatment of Fred’s widow is essentially a continuation of his cruelty and violence, especially since they refuse to admit that they have a responsibility to his young children.

The conclusion of the film gestures towards magical realism, as Shula adopts the voice of the guinea fowl, which warns other animals of predators with its cry. The implication is that she will confront her family and that there will be some sort of justice for the widow and her children, and some sort of emotional vindication of Fred’s other victims.

The movie ends without showing that confrontation though—perhaps because Nyoni couldn’t quite visualize it or believe in it. In any case, the gesture towards healing is nowhere near as powerful, sustained, or imagined as the unendurable demonstration of the ways in which family love, family trust and family tradition can be weaponized against the most vulnerable in the name of unity and care. In some ways, that makes this film more powerful and more necessary. I’d be very sure you know what you’re getting into before you turn it on, though.