On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, a black dramedy directed by a breakout auteur star, Rungano Nyoni, has been getting exclusively rave reviews since its premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in 2024. This truly unique A24 piece, now available to watch at home, manages to pull off one of the hardest tricks in cinema: talking about serious, tough matters while maintaining a tone that keeps the film engaging and captivating. Like many dark comedies, Nyoni’s film, set in her native Zambia, starts with death, when its young protagonist, Shula (Susan Chardy), finds a lifeless body on the road while coming back from a party (and dressed in a titular guinea fowl’s costume no less). After a series of phone calls, another woman, Shula’s cousin, Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), arrives and, after inspecting the body, starts dancing—thus, setting up the film’s very specific intonation that’s always skirting around the darkness but never forgetting about the promise of light.
