On Becoming a Guinea Fowl review: A fierce, acerbic Zambian comedy-drama about community

The second feature by Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a brilliantly wry film of funeral traditions and familial idiosyncrasies. Tackling dark familial secrets with acerbic wit, it explores a culture of silence around sexual abuse. The result is a fiercely feminist tale filled with powerful observations, told through the eyes of a woman struggling with her commitment to community, as she’s backed into corners by social norms.

While the movie's humor and visual form verge on surreal, a deceptively withheld lead performance by Susan Chardy — who plays Shula, a woman visiting her Zambian hometown after many years abroad — helps ground it within social realism. Nyoni, who was similarly born in Zambia but raised in Britain, strikes this visual and tonal balance with an expert han...