Charlotte Emma Aitchison has done pretty well for herself. You may recognize her from her stage name – Charli XCX, where she has produced six studio albums to date, with her last being 2024’s Brat, that not only saw the word become the Collins English Dictionary’s word of the year, but it also sparked a cultural phenomenon that was termed “Brat summer”.

The 33-year-old Cambridge-born singer/songwriter now appears to be dipping her toes more into the medium of film, which she continues with this low-fi drama.

Arriving in Warsaw, Poland is Bethany (XCX) with her boyfriend Rob (Will Madden). Rob wanted to go somewhere romantic for a city break, such as Paris, as he plans to surprise her with a proposal, but she managed to convince him that the Polish city was romantic.

It transpires that Bethany had ulterior motives, with an old friend Nel (Lena Góra) living there, who she wants to visit, which is just as well because whenever they do meet up, a volcano erupts somewhere around the world, serving as some kind of sign. But what does it mean?

With Charli’s first two dabble with film being cutesy animated films (2016’s The Angry Bird Movie and 2019’s UglyDolls), she now looks to be interested in slightly more grown-up material – artsy, with a side order of fartsy.

Take just the name, for example, which hasn’t been translated from its Polish origins, to give it much needed euro arthouse credentials.

And then there’s its 71 minute running time, which is showing its artsy middle finger at conventional 90 minute run times, and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that there just isn’t enough story to stretch that far; and that’s a surprise in itself as the director – Pete Ohs, and four members of the cast share credits for writing it, no doubt with all five of them writing every other word in an experimental fashion.

The result is a Slacker-ish energy, with very little happening, to a bunch of euro dull characters. In truth it’s a short film that has been zhuzed up, with a sprinkling of pretention, to support Charlie’s contribution, but even at 71 minutes it feels overlong.

The title tries desperately to infer of the ‘eruption’ between two young women who seem destined to be together, but the reality is, it’s about as dramatic as a door being opened by a gentle breeze.

That said, it has a quiet charm to it, especially from the low-fi performances from its leads, especially XCX, Góra - and Madden, who plays the soppy bo with just the right amount of wetness. No doubt it’s probably all deliberately underplayed, especially as the US director’s portfolio appears to consist of features you’re unlikely to have heard of, unless you stumbled upon them by mistake in the ICA on a rainy afternoon.

XCX appears to be continuing with the acting lark, but with all brief supporting roles (choosing to ignore her other film ‘project’ The Moment - as did most of the cinema going public), she’ll no doubt be chuffed with her lead role here – as will her loyal fans – as adequate as it is, but her acting career doesn’t look likely to explode anytime soon. Oh Well, at least she has her day job…