Coming-of-age stories have a long-standing relationship with Hollywood. From The benefits of a wallflower are until The breakfast club until Ladybird, they strike a chord with the public for many reasons. The conflicts are often about high school, parents, friendships or romantic relationships – not an uncommon concept in the cinema. Coming-of-age stories, however, show these conflicts as a way for characters to grapple with bigger, heavier concepts (identity, loss and grief, mental health, the passage of time, etc.), concepts involving the whole audience.
that of Amazon Secondary school describes the real-life experiences of two twin girls in the 1990s. Amidst the flannel, baggy clothes, grunge music and the cultural shift of the 90s, the two girls go through high school and become a famous music group, ‘Tegan And Sara’.
Tegan And Sara, a Canadian pop duo, has a musical career spanning nearly thirty years. The sister duo embarked on both national and international tours, earning Grammy nominations, creating nine studio albums (to date), winning GLAAD, Juno and Studio8 awards, and advocating for the LGBTQ+ community throughout their careers. In addition to their musical careers and advocacy, the sisters wrote an award-winning memoir — one that inspired an upcoming limited streaming series.
Secondary school is based on the sisters’ memoir from 2019. Their memoir tells the story of the sisters’ childhood and adolescence, describing their struggles as twins, as queer teens in Calgary, Alberta, and as children coming of age in the 1990s. The book describes their individual experiences by alternating which sister tells each chapter. While this clear model with varying perspectives was not adopted for the upcoming show, Secondary school still captures the nostalgia of the 1990s, its many identity crises, and the authenticity of Tegan and Sara’s real-world experiences.
This is what you can expect from Secondary school.
High School: The Plot
Based on the official Amazon Studios summary, the plot of Secondary school very similar to the 2019 memoir.
“…Secondary school is a story about finding your own identity – a journey that becomes even more complicated when you have twins whose own struggles and self-discovery seem so close to your own. Told against a backdrop of 90s grunge and rave culture, the series weaves parallel and dissonant memories of twin sisters growing up in the hall of each other.”
The eight-episode series focuses on two twin sisters growing up in the 1990s, who both struggle to forge individual, independent identities from each other. When Tegan and Sara both start the school year at a new school, they split up socially. One twin befriends a group of alternative “grunge”-era teenagers, while the other enters into a romantic relationship. The twins lead separate lives, struggling to straighten out their relationship of each other and their independence from each other. Throughout the series, both sisters find a shared love of making music and use it to form a bond (just like the real Tegan and Sara).
The trailer conveys the animosity and complicated relationship between the two sisters. while they are unique Connected, the sisters’ feelings about being twins seem to waver between grateful and resentful at this stage of their lives.
High School: The Cast
Secondary school stars Railey and Seazynn Gilliland, two TikTok creators. In addition to the lead roles, the cast consists of Esther McGregor (Obi Wan Kenobi)Olivia Rouyre (American horror stories)Amanda Fix (Broken Diamonds)Brianne Tjuc (I know what you did last summer)Geena Meszaros (Under the banner of heaven)CJ Valleroy (NCIS: Los Angeles)and Nate Corddry (For all mankind). The series also includes special appearances from Cobie Smulders (The Avengers, How I Met Your Mother) and Kyle Bornheimer (Marriage Story, Brooklyn Nine-Nine).
It is executive produced by Clea DuVall, Tegan and Sara Quinn, Laura Kittrell, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Carina Sposato. Duvall and Kittrell are also the main showrunners and co-writers.
The series is produced by Amazon Studios and Emmy and Academy Award-winning Plan B Entertainment.
Publication date
Secondary school will make its worldwide debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. The first four episodes will premiere on October 14, 2022, with new episodes every Friday on Amazon Freevee.
High School: Everything Else
The mission to find the perfect Tegan and Sara was tough. In an interview with Colliderproducer Laura Kittrell explained how showrunners Railey and Seazynn discovered Gilliland.
“We saw a lot of people, we saw a lot of good people, but then Tegan, on the TikTok algorithm, found these two, sent the video to us, we were like, ‘They’re really cute, but they’re definitely not. never acted before, this seems impossible.’ And then we actually auditioned them and they were incredible and it was unmistakable And then they worked their way out with an acting coach and music teachers and just went to a real musician and actor boot camp I think the first day of filming there was this energy of, “Okay, this whole thing could fall apart if they can’t do it.” And from the first second it was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s going to work. It’s going to work.’ And throughout the season they just got better and better and I’m very proud of them.”