The wife of a journalist who was shot during an armed gang attack on the General Hospital cries as an ambulance arrives with his body at a different hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph, File)
The Young children from left, Isaac, Lucas, and Gianna, attend the Ohio March for Life with their mom, Erin Young, at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. All three children are adopted. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)The Young children from left, Isaac, Lucas, and Gianna, attend the Ohio March for Life with their mom, Erin Young, at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. All three children are adopted. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Isaac Young, 5, holds up an “Ohio Voted” sticker outside the Trenton Township polling place after watching his dad, Mike Young, vote for Donald Trump on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Sunbury, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Isaac Young, 5, holds up an “Ohio Voted” sticker outside the Trenton Township polling place after watching his dad, Mike Young, vote for Donald Trump on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Sunbury, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)“They know, and they understand why we voted for Trump. They know that he’s the most pro-life president,” she said a little more than a week after the election. “Now that the election has gone our way. We still need to focus on
. Because the power has been given back to the states. We still need to pray, and we still need to fight against the abortion laws in the state itself.”Isaac Young, 5, wears his “TRUMP Keep America Great” hat as he holds up the book, “One Vote, Two Votes, I Vote, You Vote of The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library” by Bonnie Worth, illustrated by Aristides Ruiz, and Joe Mathieu, before going to watch his dad, Mike Young, vote for Donald Trump on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Sunbury, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Isaac Young, 5, wears his “TRUMP Keep America Great” hat as he holds up the book, “One Vote, Two Votes, I Vote, You Vote of The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library” by Bonnie Worth, illustrated by Aristides Ruiz, and Joe Mathieu, before going to watch his dad, Mike Young, vote for Donald Trump on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Sunbury, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Ohio voters a year ago approved aBut Shula, portrayed by Susan Chardy, does not behave in a way that we would expect. She doesn’t cry out in horror or appear the least bit upset or shocked by the sight. Instead, we sit there with her in silence, her in sunglasses and a silver helmeted mask adorned with sparkling rhinestones. Shula looks straight out of a music video as she stares off into the distance. This, we realize quickly, is going to be a thing. At the very least, it’s an inconvenience, ripping her out of her independent life and back into the throes of her traditional family, their patriarchal ways and all their crippling secrets.
This is the opening scene of “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,”darkly comedic, stylish and hauntingly bizarre portrait of a Zambian family funeral. It is perhaps the first great film of 2025 — though it’s technically been awaiting its moment in the United States since 2024. It premiered last year at the
and has already had a run in the U.K.to have something this great in the cinemas to shake audiences out of their end-of-the-road awards contender boredom. What better way to do it than with something so different, so vibrant and so unforgettable as “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” only the second feature from the self-taught filmmaker.