Nel runs a small flower shop in Warsaw, a quiet, sunlit space where petals and promises bloom under her careful touch. Nel keeps the shop as a touchstone of memory, inherited from her mother, while the city around her hums with life and change. One day, a childhood friend, Bethany, arrives with her boyfriend, Rob. It’s the first time Bethany has come to Warsaw since starting their relationship, and the visit quickly tests old routines and new loyalties. After they check into an Airbnb, Rob takes a nap, and Bethany heads out to explore. Nel, closing up for the day, happens to glimpse her old friend and finds herself pulled into a reunion that feels both familiar and awkward. Their last interaction had left a sting—Bethany had promised to call every other week but never did—and the tension breathes between them as they cross paths in the city’s ordinary spaces turned charged by memory.
The arrival of Nel’s ex-girlfriend, Ula, adds another layer to the fragile balance. Ula’s sudden presence at the apartment building unsettles Nel, and the two spar gently as old feelings resist being neatly filed away. The day unfolds with a plan to see a local theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a choice that seems to promise artful resolution even as it signals unresolved history between Nel and Ula.
Meanwhile, Bethany and Rob dedicate time to sightseeing. In a park, Bethany teaches Rob a handful of Polish phrases before they visit the National Museum, trying to flatten the distance that has grown between them. Rob wrestles with the idea of proposing, clutching a grandmother’s engagement ring, and he knows Bethany’s insistence on Warsaw rather than Paris is a barometer of something he can’t quite name. A sudden disruption—Mount Etna’s eruption sending volcanic ash into the sky and delaying their flight back to London—extends their stay and gives them more time to learn each other’s rhythms.
After a long day, Nel winds down by listening to music on a bridge, the city’s soundscape framing the moment as she returns home. That night, Bethany shakes her awake by throwing rocks at her window and asks to come upstairs. The confession falls free: she’s found Rob’s engagement ring and realizes she doesn’t feel the same depth of connection toward him. They end up spending the night wandering through Warsaw, dancing with strangers and reciting poetry until dawn. The morning finds Bethany casually making coffee, oblivious to Rob’s awareness of her absence.
The trio’s social orbit expands to Claude, an American painter who invites them to a party at his studio after a spa date and a sushi dinner. While Rob has reservations about disrupting their evening with a bohemian detour, Bethany persuades him to go first. At the gathering, Nel is there too—an alignment of past and present that unsettles Rob, who watches as Bethany and Nel dance together while he sits on the periphery. A pause for fresh air leads Bethany away from the party, and she later texts Rob to say she’ll spend the night at Nel’s place and will reach out the next day.
That night, Bethany and Nel live out a night of clubbing, drugs, and impassioned poetry, a revelatory stretch that seems to crystallize their bond. The following morning, they visit Claude’s apartment, where Nel articulates her belief that a volcano erupts whenever she and Bethany reunite, a symbolic arrow pointing to their intertwined fates. Rob attempts to reach Bethany again and again, but she remains unavailable, and Nel is aware that Rob seems like a kind, suitable match for Bethany while Bethany herself rejects the notion as boring and predictable. The day continues with Nel reconsidering her own path, encouraged by Bethany to travel more—an idea that begins to take hold.
Later, Maja visits the flower shop to remind Nel to call her, and Nel postpones work to show Bethany more of Warsaw. The women share a moment of tenderness, but the fragile peace keeps tilting. That evening, Ula returns, and Nel’s hesitation to attend a promised outing costs her a rift with her friend. Ula leaves, and Nel’s heart cools toward the person who once held the key to her deepest confidences. Meanwhile, Rob grows more distressed by Bethany’s evasions, and Bethany confides in Nel a dream that reveals the emotional weather she is navigating.
The next morning brings a note from Bethany, a quiet departure that reads like a vow—“until the next eruption.” Nel’s sadness is tempered by her sister’s pragmatic wisdom, and Maja encourages her to apologize to those she loves. Rob travels to Claude’s studio seeking clarity, and Nel calls Claude to bring Rob to the flower shop so they can tell the full story together. In a moment of storytelling and confession, Nel recounts her longstanding friendship with Bethany, the stone-like certainty of their volcanic pattern, and Bethany’s hope that Warsaw might still offer something real to her life.
They end up at the Pomnik Syreny—ashes of memory and the weight of a city’s history pressing on them—as Rob faces the possibility that he may never get to propose to Bethany in the way he imagined. Claude leaves, and Nel and Rob spend long hours discussing Bethany, their own expectations, and Nel’s relationship with Ula. In a quiet gesture, Rob lends Nel his unused lunch reservation at Opasły Tom, the exact restaurant where Nel and Ula had their first date. The scene folds emotions into a single, decisive moment when Rob and Nel watch the world shift around them, processing Bethany’s absence and the fragility of their ties.
In a final act of candor and possibility, Rob phones Bethany one last time, leaving a voicemail that weaves a small poem about volcanoes into the ache of what is and isn’t possible. Rob departs for the airport, while Nel meets Ula at Opasły Tom to offer a belated apology for the pain Bethany’s absence has caused. The closing narration reveals that Bethany spent a week traveling alone around Poland before returning to London, where she apologizes to Rob and moves back in with her parents. The film ends on a note of tempered closure—burnished by memory, soothed by distance, and opened to the idea that some bonds, while eruptive, can still leave room for a reimagined future.
