Erupcja

Slowly but surely, director Pete Ohs has been building a name for himself. None of his films have broken out, which is unsurprising, given that he generally works in very small scale stories made on meager budgets whose stories remain low-key throughout. But they are perfectly calibrated to gain the attention of film festivals and movie nerds, meaning that although you're unlikely to have seen one of them, you may have seen the poster for his off-kilter supernatural comedy, 2022's Jethica. If ever he's to make the leap, his 2025 output could be the catalyst. He worked closely with indie favorite (and creative genius) Albert Birney on OBEX, and he released The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick at SXSW, which just received digital distribution. The culmination is Erupjca, a (limited) theatrical release co-starring one of the biggest pop stars (a cinephile!), using very European sensibilities to tell the story of a romantic vacation gone awry, derailed by a fear-induced love triangle.

But Ohs eases us into that narrative, allowing us to steep in disorientation for a while. The film (co-written by Ohs and his leads, as on every film since Youngstown) takes its time showing its hand, gradually introducing us to its characters and their relationships and where they are in life before pointing us towards where they're going. We meet Nel (Lena Góra) tending her inherited flower shop in Warsaw, as uninterested in working as she is dedicated to showing up each day. Her younger sister Maja (Maja Michnacka) comes by to bug her. Her ex Ula (Agata Trzebuchowska) is back in town, and they plan to catch Shakespeare later in the week. Then we're introduced to Bethany and Rob (Charlie XCX and Will Madden), Londoners who've come for a weekend trip to what Bethany calls the most romantic city in Europe. He's kind and thoughtful if somewhat plain and stiflingly adherent to a rigid plan, which we see in her eyes any time they sit down to chat. Which makes it extra intriguing when she goes for a "short walk" that involves a train and a bus, knowing exactly how to navigate to Nel's flower shop. She arrives just in time to follow the Polish native home, where she hides behind a tree and stares through her window. Although Nel senses something and peers at the tree from her balcony, she's too late: all that remains is the afterimage of Bethany's visit, leaving us to wonder what the relationship was (is?) between these two women.

The general shape of the story appears like so many other relationship dramas. Someone feels smothered by their partner, and blows off steam by escaping their stale life for a time, often by reconnecting with someone from their past. But Ohs' approach stacks a variety of zags on top of each other, rendering the piece's atmosphere completely different, even before it deviates from the well-worn structure enough to put you in less certain territory.

For one, there's Jacek Zubiel's narration, which bridges scenes using small bits of context and backstory, delivered with matter-of-fact, deadpan humor. Each incursion is short and punchy, and the omniscient narrator remains disengaged from the goings on while connecting us to them more, preventing it from feeling like unnecessary exposition, instead landing as an echo of the opening monologue of Sentimental Value. Accompanying each is a shot of a single, solid color, lasting just a couple of seconds. The arc of the changing shades ensures even the least observant viewer will clock that they're charting the emotional tenor of the central relationship, while aligning you with the color palette of the image to come. Charles Watson and Isabella Summers' score even gets in on the fun. It refuses to settle into one mode, instead jumping from lively modern jazz on an electronic piano to discordant glitch to throbbing club music and back again, never selecting the obvious instrumentation, but somehow always settling on the right one to suck you into the scene.

The restlessness of the artistry dovetails nicely with Bethany's mental state, running away from the stability sought even by the object of her affection. Since meeting half a lifetime ago, every time Nel and Bethany come together, a volcano erupts somewhere in the world, disrupting travel and often trapping the Brit in Poland, which the women saw as a sign to shake up their lives. This time, it's Italy's Etna that results in Rob and Bethany staying in Warsaw longer than planned, triggering party time.

However, the first hints of their shifting expectations come almost immediately, as Nel seems hesitant about Bethany's reappearance in her life. She doesn't take much convincing, but her concerns repeat on both her face and in her protestations, even as they don't obstruct her actions. But they do work to support the other main narrative thrust, where we follow Rob as he tries to re-engage and then track down the woman to whom he's trying to propose. Which is already a bit different; the more common version of this story would stay with Bethany the whole time, and only show us the impact of her actions at the end, if at all. Instead, we spend large chunks of time with Rob as he wanders the city alone, pondering and concerned and exasperated, and experience the evolution of his thinking about the entire situation right alongside him. Rather than relegating him to an abstract symbol of her repression, he is a fully formed character whose journey deeply informs our experience of her's.

Without the wonderful acting of the central cast, communicating a deep and nuanced inner life, this would all fall apart. Madden and Góra are relative unknowns, although neither are brand new, and both pull off their characters' quiet reactions to Bethany's behavior very believably. Charli XCX gets her most dramatically demanding role thus far, and pulls it off admirably, demonstrating that her foray into film acting is more than simple vanity. Interestingly, this was the first of her features to premier (at TIFF 2025), leading the way for the coming blitz, now up to seven movies in the past eight months. Some roles have been bigger than others, but only Ohs has dared to demand much of her, hopefully presaging her output in the coming years. All of that is before you consider the supporting cast, from the grounded Trzebuchowska to the lively and carefree Jeremy O. Harris as Claude, a nomadic American artist whose party gives Bethany cover to begin her spiral.

Thus, this seemingly slight, certainly cash-strapped, seventy minute interpersonal drama manages to feel fresher and more engaging than most of what's been released so far this year, despite having a budget orders of magnitude smaller. It's imbued with the raw energy that only hyper-independent productions can capture. When they manage to gain traction, be they audacious spectacle like Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie or tiny spook-fest like Undertone, they can offer audiences a fantastic antidote to the sameness that plagues modern mainstream blockbusters, especially in the quiet, pre-summer movie season. They can be hard to come by if you don't live in New York or LA, but even when they don't work, they're always worth your time.