I appreciate the fact that A24 goes anywhere to get a story; this time, it travels to Zambia for a unique family drama, as told by director and screenwriter Rungano Nyoni. ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL made its debut on MONDAY, JULY 7 at 8:00 p.m. ET on HBO and on HBO Max on 07.04. As promo materials tell us, on an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her Uncle Fred. Yet she seems unfazed. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family. We learn about what her uncle has done. They are accepted truths collectively hidden. Should they ever be spoken or just passed by?
In the matriarchal Zambian society we are witness to, the women do their due diligence for the deceased, and a days-long cultural funeral rite must be enacted, whether the deceased was deserving of it or not. It seems Uncle Fred was abusive, and some of those attending his body were on the receiving end of his behavior. How they make it through to the burial is an anguish, and as funerals are, a time of reflection and grief.
The 95-minute movie stars Susan Chardy as Shula, and as her cousins, Nsansa and Bupe are played by Elizabeth Chisela and Esther Singini, respectively. The innocence of being little guinea fowl is over; the hard truths must be faced. Why are we wailing over this man and praising his name in his passing? Those traumatized by his abuses see it quite differently. Those conflicts are at the heart of the story, but are told in a tone sprinkled with humor, absurdity, and intensive forethought. Many have praised how Rungano Nyoni captured it. RogerEbert.com posted, “An uncomfortable but entrancing watch, a tribute to shattering silence around family secrets and bucking tradition for the sake of empathy.” Another reviewer on that site calls it, “a magically transcendent, cunningly funny, and arresting piece of cultural commentary that puts the inequalities of tradition against the warmth community can, still, on occasions, provide.” RT marks it thusly-
ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL is on everyone’s list, and now HBO is airing it across its channels and on HBO Max.
