‘Erupcja’ Review: Charli XCX and Lena Góra Burn Through a Volcanic Spiral of Sapphic Chaos and Millennial Ennui
We all have that one friend who brings out the worst in us. The one we don't see often, but upon reuniting, it's as if no time has passed, and the bad impulses we worked so hard to push away erupt like a volcano. Hell, their connection is volcanic in and of itself. But for the loved ones around them, it might as well be Pompeii. Pete Ohs' magnetic mumblecore portrait, Erupcja, literally uses volcanoes as the connective thread between two longtime friends who bring out the best and worst of each other at a time when they are slightly, quietly lost.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of 1-2 Special
MPA Rating: NR
Runtime: 1 Hour and 11 Minutes
Language: English
Production Companies: Spartan Media Acquisitions, bb²
Distributor: 1-2 Special
Director: Pete Ohs
Screenwriters: Pete Ohs, Jeremy O. Harris, Charli XCX, Lena Góra, Will Madden
Cast: Charli XCX, Lena Góra, Jeremy O. Harris, Will Madden
U.S Release Date: April 17 2026
In Warsaw, Poland, cool-girl drifter Bethany (Charli XCX) arrives with her sweet-natured but dorky boyfriend Rob (Will Madden), who’s meticulously planned a romantic trip complete with a proposal she already sees coming. But when Mount Etna erupts, Bethany takes it as a cosmic sign to ditch the itinerary she’s been quietly blasé about and reconnects with Nel (Lena Góra), her Polish best friend with whom she shares a deeply intimate, homoerotic bond. Their connection is quite literally explosive; for the past 16 years of their friendship, whenever they link up, a volcano would erupt.
Nel, by contrast, is rooted, running her family’s floral shop and on the verge of committing to her situationship with Ula (Agata Trzebuchowska). Once Bethany is back, the two fall into their old rhythm: nights of clubbing, drinking, smoking, and stretching time until morning, wrapped up in a world that feels like it belongs only to them. Throughout their reunion, they realize that their joint disregard for the rest of the world is emotionally affecting others and themselves.
Pete Ohs blends millelianal oriented mumblecore looseness with sharp emotional insight.
Charli XCX as Bethany in Erupcja Image copyright (©) Courtesy of 1-2 Special
Over the past year, director, editor, and overall multi-hyphenate Pete Ohs has been on my radar. Mainly because his name was inescapable during the 2025 indie film circuit, arriving at every festival with a different title. At Sundance, he was the DP and co-writer of Albert Birney's underrated, game-aesthetic Obex. At SXSW, he helmed the Zoë Chao and Callie Hernandez-led The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick (which I am yet to see). At TIFF, he brought Erupcja.
Somewhere between experimental and mumblecore, Erupcja plays like a classic, breezy, light vérité piece, keeping you entranced with its situational premise, voyeuristic handheld lens, and sharp improvisational humor. As the characters traverse the charcoal-colored but vibrant European town, Ohs shoots them with dizzying delight and youthful zest. He captures a relationship that’s grown older but not necessarily forward; their bond is still suspended in time as they met when they were 16, even as adulthood demands more responsibility and agency from them.
Ohs' structuring has a captivating French New Wave flair, combining an disembodied, gruff-voiced male narration that textures each character's inner workings with colorful screen transitions that move us from one character snapshot to the next. While this could feel like a shortcut, it adds precision, depth, comedic elements, and insight into character dynamics, particularly as it observes the ruckus that Bethany and Nel's relationship stirs in others.
His handheld camerawork oscillates between their perspectives when the girls rage across town, then shifts to dry, slice-of-life intimacy when the party winds down and they hang out in a recovering hangover haze. The same attention applies when they're alone, highlighting their isolation within the vacancy of their surroundings, which lends the performers space to add complexity to their characters, allowing some strong performances to soar.
Erupcja is a vibrant, chaotic portrait that could’ve lingered a little longer.
That sense of lived-in authenticity – particularly in Bethany and Nel’s long, complicated bond, and Rob’s growing discomfort as he’s abandoned – speaks to the film’s collaborative DNA. Co-written by its stars, alongside Jeremy O. Harris, who also appears as an American painter the trio encounters, the film thrives on its experimental, improvisational energy. When these worlds collide, it captures both the messy thrill of connection and the spontaneous magic of filmmaking itself. It dismantles my aversion to postcard mumblecore cinema through its fun, free-spirited portrait of millennial aimlessness, relatable and well-realized through XCX and Góra's onscreen chemistry.
Out of all the XCX onscreen film performances in recent history, especially considering this was shot at the height of “Brat Summer” in 2024, her Bethany is possibly the best she’s been as a character actress. She channels an enigmatic, corrupting chaos agent with a natural gift for persuasion, while also finding the relatable, unfulfilled loneliness. Her Wuthering Heights album could’ve been made for this and it would’ve added actual depth. Bethany, as Erupcja finds her, is like watching your best friend, full of life, settle for a dull loser for the betterment of caging her party-girl persona, one you know he has never seen. You know she deserves more, but once uncontained, you're somehow infected by her. That's Bethany and Nel, but with a major dose of sapphic eroticism. Between Erupcja and Mother Mary, it's a big week for yuri movies where you feel the weight and history of two friends' homoerotic past through their longing glances at each other.
Charli is complemented by Lena Góra, who is equally sublime, seeing her responsibility and control tested by the one person who can undo everything for her, who knows her so completely. Góra was transfixing, for this is my first time seeing her in a feature, carrying an aura of butch femme swagger, but also sweetness and understanding to just about everyone.
That said, despite its precise, well-paced runtime, I found myself wanting more from their conversations. Not necessarily more backstory (they have a yuri manga prequel zine for that), but more room to sit in their emotional honesty. Just as they begin to open up about their shared ennui, the film often cuts away, favoring momentum over depth. The frenetic energy works, but Erupcja could’ve benefited from letting those moments breathe a bit more without losing its rhythm.
Final Statement
Breezy, vibrant, and bolstered by Charli XCX and Lena Góra's fiery chemistry, Pete Ohs' Erupcja is a magnetic and very funny mumblecore postcard portrait of aimless millennial ennui and yearning – particularly the people who serve as a reminder to mature.
