Over/Under Brings Nostalgia and a Heartfelt Look at Growing Up

Over/Under arrives with the kind of quiet emotional force that tends to linger long after the credits — a tender coming-of-age drama that understands how childhood can feel infinite, right up until the moment it doesn’t. Executive produced by Cooper Raiff (Cha Cha Real Smooth, Hal & Harper), the film will be available digitally in the UK & Ireland from 24th August, followed by a release in the US & Canada on 25th August, via Bulldog Film Distribution.

Set during the summer of 2002, the story centres on Violet and Stella, two nine-year-olds bound together by the unshakeable logic of best friendship. Their world is made of saltwater afternoons and small rituals: playing in the waves, catching butterflies, sending wishes to fairies — even the mischievous thrill of spying on nude adults at the beach. It’s sunlit, strange, and wonderfully specific in the way only real childhood memories are.

But seasons change, and so do bodies, friendships, and the rules of belonging. When summer ends, Stella returns to a life filled with other friends and new conversations — the kind that edge away from mermaids and toward the confusing realities of growing up. Violet, left behind in the silence of that shift, becomes a target for a cruel bully while privately navigating the unsettling transformations of puberty.

Across the summers that follow, Violet and Stella find their way back to each other again and again, but the magic they once shared is tested by everything that arrives with adolescence: boys, family trauma, social pressure, and the aching desire to “fit in.” Over/Under captures that fragile in-between space — the stretch of time where innocence doesn’t disappear all at once, but fractures slowly, in moments you don’t realise are defining until years later.

The film is led by Emajean Bullock in her feature debut, alongside Anastasia Veronica Lee (Fresh Kills), Adam David Thompson (A Teacher), Madeline Wise (So Help Me Todd), Brandon Keener (The Pitt), and Christiane Seidel (The Queen’s Gambit). Together, they bring warmth and weight to a story that honours the deepest kind of friendship — and reminds us just how delicate childhood really is.