Review: Passion spills over in the loose-limbed 'Erupcja,' starring Charli XCX

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

Film buffs understand that nearly every movie is, at heart, a travelogue — even if it occurs in your neighboring town — and that most travelogues can come across like love stories, whether anyone ends up together or not.That’s the whimsical, charged appeal of the Charli XCX-starring “Erupcja,” a mélange of romance, escape and disruptive coincidence in modern Warsaw from American micro-auteur Pete Ohs.If you put footage of a smoke-spewing volcano under that Polish title, you’ll gather what the word means, which is exactly what Ohs does at the beginning, color-tinting his boxy frame ’60s-arthouse-style and adding a vintage Mancini-esque track from a Polish chanteuse.

All the better to seed the belief that we’re about to experience something dreamy and convulsive.That said, a volcano isn’t why British couple Bethany (Charli XCX) and Rob (Will Madden) have arrived in Warsaw.That rumbling you hear could also just be suitcases rolled over ancient streets.

Besotted Rob’s surprise plan was to propose to Bethany in Paris — as revealed to us in omnipotent voice-over (by Jacek Zubiel) that fills in the feelings and backstories of our protagonists.Entertainment & Arts Bethany chose Warsaw, however, because she has a rekindling in mind, in the form of her longtime friend Nel (Lena Góra), a florist for whom Bethany’s unprompted arrival under her balcony one night — stealing away from her Airbnb with Rob — is complicated and exciting.

With the news breaking that Italy’s Mount Etna has just erupted, grounding planes across Europe, a mighty passion they forged as teenagers, fueled by drugs, clubbing, heart-to-hearts and poetry, has once more been unleashed.It’s just their thing: Whenever Bethany and Nel connect, a volcano announces itself somewhere in the world.

Woe be to the moony boyfriend or, in Nel’s case, exasperated girlfriend (Agata Trzebuchowska)...