On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a thought-provoking, often frustrating piece which stands as a solid reflection of our reality and how — despite all our progress — we haven’t changed that much, or don’t wish to, at least.

| Apr 25, 2025

Gets more thoughtful and empowering by the minute. A modern fable. A fable that’s a treasure.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 20, 2025

Though largely a black comedy with notes of absurdism, "Guinea Fowl" simmers like a pot about to boil over.

| Mar 27, 2025

Coupled with an intense score (by Lucrecia Dalt) that would seem to be more at home in a thriller or horror movie, Nyoni is not being shy about the fact that that story she's telling is a difficult one.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 26, 2025

“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” may feel like a daunting task when you just want to relax and watch a movie. It is a funny movie despite being about death and trauma, but more importantly, it is unique, stunning and surprising.

| Mar 23, 2025

Rungano Nyoni’s brilliant, freaky and devastating exploration of relations between, and within, the sexes in Shula’s culture.

| Mar 22, 2025

A searing look at an African community of women coming to terms with a deceased male elder who was responsible for a pattern of abuse.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 21, 2025

In lesser hands, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl could have been preachy and obvious. But Nyoni's style feels casual and unforced; her characters aren't writing feminist position papers. They're living in a fully realized environment.

| Mar 20, 2025

The film is beautifully shot, with cinematographer David Gallego composing some images that are beautifully impressionistic and some that are coldly realistic. The entire film takes on a dream-like quality.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 20, 2025

The year is young, but it’s a certainty that when it closes this extraordinary film about trauma suppressed by familial and societal demands will be among its best.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 20, 2025

There’s a quiet conviction to the proceedings, letting the hypocrisy and resultant upheaval speak for themselves, with a bit of humor to highlight and temper the dark absurdity.

| Mar 17, 2025

Its 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, where heinous sin is swept under the rug.

| Original Score: 9.1/10 | Mar 16, 2025

A searing, bleak exploration of sexual assault, sexism, misogyny, and enforced family silence.

| Mar 16, 2025

A cathartic, confident, unfussy film that brushes against the universality of death, while sharing the specificity of Zambian mourning rituals to a global audience.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 14, 2025

Nyoni lets the visual and thematic pieces of her film’s dramatic puzzle fall into place gradually.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 14, 2025

This is a poetic-realist vision with grace notes of wit and surrealism.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 14, 2025

A fantastic sophomore effort from Nyoni. She refrains from spoon-feeding the viewers with over-expositions and delivers a sharp critique in a tight 99 minutes, loaded with thought-provoking ideas.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 14, 2025

Nyoni’s embrace of the absurd, as well as her seamless use of symbolic references and the depiction of traditional rituals, showcase her impressive storytelling talent.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 13, 2025

A handful of off-kilter dream sequences, which are revealed to be dreams only retroactively, and realistic scenes that still contain a mystical quality and Nyoni’s images of entrapment become tangible. A must-see.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 13, 2025

Cements Nyoni’s rep as a filmmaker with vision and conviction.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 12, 2025