Charli XCX and Will Madden in 'Erupcja'. CREDIT: 1-2 Special
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‘Erupcja’ review: Charli XCX’s indie summer getaway

It’s off with the chains of love in Pete Ohs’ romantic drama

by · NME

When your partner picks Warsaw over Paris for a loved-up mini-break, your relationship is probably on shaky ground. And so it proves in Erupcja, a slight but beguiling romantic drama in which Charli XCX delivers another quietly impressive performance.

In this year’s messy mockumentary The Moment, the pop disruptor played a conflicted version of herself, trying to protect the hedonistic authenticity of ‘Brat Summer‘ from corporate intervention. Here, she stretches herself a little further as Bethany, a laconic Londoner whose keen boyfriend Rob (Will Madden) is about to propose. Bethany knows this because she found the ring a few weeks earlier. But when the couple arrives in the Polish capital – a place that has a special resonance for Bethany, though Rob doesn’t know this yet – the fault lines begin to appear.

After they turn in at their nondescript Airbnb, Bethany sneaks out to meet Nel (Lena Góra), a loner local flower shop owner she ghosted after her last trip to the country. And though Will has trawled the internet and the Michelin Guide to plan an impeccable weekend of museums, eateries and light sightseeing, Bethany seems ambivalent to everything he suggests. She only shows any real excitement when a chance encounter with Claude (playwright Jeremy O. Harris), a friendly American artist living in Warsaw, opens doors to the city’s hipster side.

We learn later that Bethany and Nel first met as teenagers, when a massive volcanic eruption forced the Brit to extend her stay in Warsaw. Since then, they’ve clung to the conviction that eruptions – or “erupcja” in Polish – will bring them together when they need to reconnect. Are their lives fated to intertwine, or are they just looking for an excuse to sack off the responsibilities of adult life? Nel has little enthusiasm for running a business, so Bethany barely needs to persuade her to shut up shop so they can hang out and drink tinnies. Meanwhile, poor Rob is moping around the city on his own, wondering why his girlfriend keeps sending him to voicemail.

We know XCX is a cinephile from her leaked Letterboxd, so from her viewpoint, there’s something characteristically counterintuitive about this project. Back in August 2024 – the blistering height of ‘Brat Summer’ – she found a few weeks to shoot this 71-minute curio in secret with emerging indie director Pete Ohs (The True Beauty Of Being Bitten By A Tick, OBEX). Ohs says his filmmaking style isn’t strictly improvisational but does have “improv energy”, which is presumably why XCX, Góra, Harris and Madden are credited as co-writers.

Accentuated by a Polish-language voiceover that pings between banal and potentially revealing, there’s an alluring ambiguity to Erupcja. We see Bethany and Nel reciting poetry to one another over red wine, however the extent to which their connection is sexual is left for us to ponder on. Erupcja isn’t as explosive as its title might suggest but it perfectly captures the possibility of blowing up your life without having to try very hard.

Details

  • Director: Pete Ohs
  • Starring: Charli XCX, Lena Góra, Jeremy O. Harris
  • Release date: June 5 (in UK cinemas)