The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox doesn't need to exist
Reenacting one of the most infamous murder cases of the 21st century, this eight-part Disney+ series spends too much time on the minutiae and not enough on the victim.
"I wasn't interested in having yet another person's voice telling the worst experience of my life for who knows what reason," executive producer Amanda Knox recently said about new Disney+ drama The Twisted Tale, a retelling of how — alongside then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito — she was wrongly convicted for the murder of fellow exchange student Meredith Kercher in a case that gripped the world.
Fair enough, you may first think. After all, she was portrayed by Hayden Panettiere in trashy Lifetime TV movie Murder on Trial while still holed up in an Italian prison cell.
And since her first acquittal, esteemed directors Michael Winterbottom (The Face of an Angel) and Tom McCarthy (Stillwater) have both made films inspired by her case without her consent.
However, Knox’s point is slightly undermined by the fact she’s also been able to directly tell her story on several occasions too. In 2013, she sat down with Diane Sawyer for a prime-time ABC News special. She talked directly to the camera in 2016’s eponymous documentary, an Emmy-nominated Netflix original which arrived during the burgeoning true crime boom. And she was reportedly paid $4 million for her first memoir Waiting to Be Heard in 2012, with a follow-up, Free: My Search for Meaning, published earlier this year.
Of course, no one can begrudge Knox for going on the media offensive to further clear her name. As she acknowledges herself in the co-penned finale, there are still sceptics who believe she’s guilty, no doubt swayed by the media vilification in which she was famously dubbed "Foxy Knoxy".
And having spent four years locked up for a crime she didn’t commit, and a further four years before she was officially exonerated, no one can begrudge her any financial rewards either. But an attempt to dramatise her ordeal for the prestige TV age feels like one rehabilitative step too far.
"This continuous stirring is a demonstration of a lack of sensitivity," noted the Kercher family’s lawyer Francesco Maresca following the show’s announcement last year. And it’s hard to disagree. For one thing, it commits the cardinal sin of relegating the woman who lost her life to little more than a minor footnote.
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Played by Rhianne Barreto, Kercher briefly appears in just one Knox-narrated montage before her demise starts to unfold barely 10 minutes in. And the occasional flashback – giddily applying some temporary tattoos, smoking at a gathering which chillingly includes her future killer – fails to explore her character beyond surface level.
Perhaps more unforgivably, The Twisted Tale appears to revel in the circumstances of Kercher’s death. The opening episode spends an interminably long time teasing the discovery of her body, heavily focusing on everything from unanswered phone calls to bathroom bloodstains to unnecessarily heighten the tension, as if we were watching the latest glossy all-star whodunnit rather than an all-too-real tragedy.
It’s a TMI approach which doesn’t exactly dispel the concerns that this is exploitation masquerading as entertainment. You can still sympathise with Knox’s plight while also recognising the show is inflicting yet more trauma on the Kerchers too. ("Our family has been through so much and it is difficult to understand how this serves any purpose," Meredith’s sister Stephanie has stated, not unreasonably.)
Indeed, the usual concern about adapting such widely-known recent history is that it will tell us plenty we already know. With eight nearly hour-long episodes to fill, however, the main problem here is that it tells us too much we didn’t need to (beware several discussions on the etiquette of toilet flushing).
The complicated legal processes, multiple trials and machinations of Knox’s family life are all pored over at a glacial pace, ultimately meaning it’s difficult to pay attention to the facts which really do matter.
Even the prosecutor hellbent on putting Knox behind bars gets a childhood backstory. Had a little more judicious editing been applied, then it may have worked as a compelling drama at the very least.
The Twisted Tale isn’t entirely without merit. Grace Van Patten, a late replacement for Margaret Qualley, may well pick up awards attention for a measured performance which nails Knox’s initial mix of confusion, grief and dangerous lack of self-awareness. She’s particularly captivating during the horrifying interrogation scenes that, largely due to numerous cross-cultural misunderstandings, saw her quickly spiral from star witness to prime suspect.
It’s a nightmarish depiction which both exposes the failings of the Italian justice system and the overwhelming pressures placed on a suspect who back in her Seattle hometown, let’s not forget, wasn’t legally old enough to drink.
Furthermore, the show does gather a little more momentum once Knox is freed as she attempts to rebuild relationships with her devoted mom (Sharon Horgan, also impressive albeit struggling to hide her Irish accent) and stern dad (John Hoogenakker), get to grips with everyday life and, somewhat unfathomably, return to Italy to make amends with the man responsible for driving her incarceration.
Nonetheless, it arguably takes until the final scene for the show to truly acknowledge there was another victim. "It was fate that meant Meredith was home that night and I wasn’t, I was the lucky one," Knox reflects on revisiting their shared Perugia apartment while replaying her happiest memories of Kercher.
"Some people will always define her by me and me by her. But the truth is we were just two girls at the start of our lives." It’s a poignant tribute, for sure, but one that could have been delivered without once again drawing attention to her harrowing end.
The first two episodes of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox are available to stream on Disney+ from 20th August with a new episode then dropping each Wednesday.
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