Over/Under is a Sun-Drenched Ode to Childhood Friendship

Even without knowing that director and co-writer Sophia Silver based Over/Under on her childhood friendship with co-writer Sianni Rosenstock, the movie feels deeply personal. The film’s central heartbeat is the friendship between Violet (Emajean Bullock) and Stella (Anastasia Veronica Lee). It’s 2002, the girls are nine years old, it’s summertime, and things are simple. Their days are remarkably monotonous. They have sleepovers, gawk at people tanning on the nude beach, share popsicles, and do it all again the next day.

There’s a sameness to summer days that feels romantic and dreamlike. Violet and Stella live in Los Angeles and San Diego respectively, but spend summers with their families in New England. The faraway vacation spot makes the girls feel like they’re living in a different world entirely. Their families have been renting the same houses in the same town for many years, and a fierce friendship has bloomed between Violet and Stella. It’s the sort of insular, codependent relationship that can only exist between nine-year-olds.

The summer of 2002 is different, though, because Violet and Stella are at an age where they’re aware that things around them are changing. It’s a difficult time because they’re old enough to be perceptive about their parents’ hardships, but they can’t know the full extent of them. They understand large events in the abstract, like Stella’s preoccupation with death because of her mother’s cancer, but they don’t have the tools to fully process what they’re feeling. It’s an impossible age to be.

As Over/Under progresses, the film shows the girls back at their homes and schools. Gone are the confident, carefree summer versions of themselves, replaced by shy girls who can’t figure out how to fit in. As they get older (the film ends the summer they’re thirteen), societal expectations and a new awareness of the world change them irrevocably.

There’s something distinctly heartbreaking about watching a friendship fracture up-close, especially given the ages of Violet and Stella. So much change happens so quickly between the ages of nine and thirteen. There’s the move from elementary school to middle school, puberty, and the preliminary stages of dating. It’s overwhelming and easy to feel like everyone has a better understanding of this new world than you. Life becomes like the waves Violet and Stella love to play in, bringing rollicking changes that can knock them down and drown them.

Violet and Stella are each other’s life preservers. They’re able to be themselves around one another without having to worry about whether they seem cool or interesting. It’s rare to have a friendship like that, and difficult to maintain it, but Violet and Stella are soulmates, but they won’t always make the right choices because they’re young and desperate to get older. Over/Under manages to perfectly demonstrate the myriad of ways that kids fall victim to their desire to be accepted. They change their hair, their make-up, and their personality, all in the hope of not being excluded.

Over/Under feels like the spiritual sister to Bo Burnham’s terrific feature debut, Eighth Grade, which takes place nearly two decades later. Eighth Grade is set in 2018 and takes an honest look at technology’s role in the life of a thirteen-year-old. Over/Under exists in 2002, along with Livestrong bracelets, rare instances of cell phone usage, and cool kids who wear Abercrombie and Fitch. And yet, the horrors of growing up are still the same, no matter the year. Young leads Bullock and Lee bear the weight of the film effortlessly, and have a chemistry that feels like a true years-long friendship. The script demands a lot of these young actors, but they deliver natural performances that truly ground the film.

Over/Under is a quiet look at friendship at a time when young people both crave and fear growing up. It’s a confusing, mixed-up time that’s filled with ideas of what they should be doing: the parties they’re supposed to go to, the boys they’re supposed to kiss, and the clothes they’re supposed to wear. The friends who stay by your side make that time of life bearable.