‘Erupcja’ Review: Charli XCX Shines in a Film About the Quiet Violence of Relationships
A reunion between two friends sparks reckless nights, strained relationships, and emotional fallout, as their intense connection threatens everything built in their separate lives.
The metaphor is a bit on the nose, but in context it works. Every time two friends who live in different countries reunite, a volcano erupts. Literally, as people like to say now. Bethany and Nel’s encounters trigger—or at least they believe they do—a build-up of gas pressure, magma rising, and everything blowing sky-high. Some will later argue that it’s not quite so exceptional, that eruptions are more common than they seem. What no one denies—either in the metaphor or in reality—is that when a volcano erupts, it leaves consequences: victims, collateral damage everywhere.
The new film by American indie filmmaker Pete Ohs—one of those directors who writes, edits, and probably handles the catering too—has a couple of elements that make it stand out. The first is the leading role played by British pop star Charli XCX, who takes on the part of Bethany. The second is its setting: Warsaw, with a good portion of the dialogue in Polish. What Erupcja charts is precisely what happens when, at the least convenient possible moment, the volatile energies these two friends generate collide once again.
Nel (Lena Góra) lives in Warsaw, runs a flower shop, and has an on-and-off relationship with Ula (Agata Trzebuchowska), who has returned to the city hoping to reconnect. At the same time, Bethany is back as well, but unlike previous visits—as the two friends will gradually explain how and when they met—she hasn’t come alone. She’s with Rob (Will Madden), the boyfriend she’s lived with for a year, who has meticulously planned the trip with the intention of surprising her and proposing, grandmother’s ring included. What Rob doesn’t know is that Bethany really just wants to see Nel again and postpone anything resembling commitment.
Erupcja spends its brief 71 minutes observing what happens when these volcanic thirty-somethings reunite and, each in her own way, tries to navigate the urge to be together, to go out, to live “carelessly and irresponsibly,” despite both having partners with whom they maintain some form of supposedly serious relationship. Over a couple of nights, they go dancing, leaving their respective partners behind. And, sticking with the volcanic metaphor, it’s fairly obvious that when the eruption comes, there will be casualties on the other side.
Shot on a low budget on the streets of Warsaw, the film has a distinctly ’60s feel in its conception—visible in its tight framing, its compositions, and in a literary Polish voiceover that occasionally summarizes or explains situations—yet it also recalls American mumblecore, only here with British (and some Polish) characters who are even less capable of articulating what they feel. When Bethany disappears and Rob is left waiting longer than he can reasonably bear, his “complaint” is so restrained it feels almost bloodless.
If there’s something that doesn’t quite work in this singular, uneasy, and at times genuinely perceptive dramatic exploration of a group of people hovering around thirty, it’s the portrayal of its male lead. Rob is so soft—“nice” is about the best anyone can say about him—that it becomes easy to understand, even justify, Bethany’s preference for any explosive plan with her friend over his well-meaning but somewhat bland suggestions. In fact, it’s hard to believe the relationship exists in the first place, and that weak foundation drains some weight and density from what follows.
Later on, however, the film reveals a series of elegant turns and resolutions that suggest the script—written and improvised by the director and his cast—is sharper and more perceptive than it initially appears. In that sense, the Polish setting gives it a distinctive local texture, pulling it away from the more familiar American or British backdrops where these kinds of stories usually unfold. One suspects that, set in London or Los Angeles, the same material would feel far more conventional and predictable.
The Brat pop star proves to be a more than promising actress, reciting a classic poem by Lord Byron (“I had a dream, which was not all a dream / The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars / Did wander darkling in the eternal space…”) in what may be the film’s most moving moment, a point where her character seems to grasp the nature of the challenges ahead. But hers is not the only story Erupcja tells. For others, perhaps, the most important lesson of the volcanic eruption lies with those left in its wake.
