Why Amanda Knox’s story still captivates

Watching “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” in full sent me straight to a viewing of the 2001 French film “Amelie.” I’m sure the Internet searches for the show’s audience at large will head in other directions; hundreds of thousands of webpages dissecting Knox’s trial and questioning her innocence await their curiosity. If that doesn’t do it for them, there are movies “inspired by” her story, made without her input, and a variety of documentaries. One of the most widely watched, 2016’s “Amanda Knox,” gives equal weight to Knox’s perspective and that of a British tabloid hack who reduced her to a crazy slattern.

As for what Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s comedy has to do with all this, true crime bloodhounds will tell you that “Amelie” was at the heart of Knox’s alibi: On November 1, 2007, she and Raffaele Sollecito watched it during a romantic date at his place, the same night her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was murdered in the flat she shared with Knox in Italy.

“Twisted Tale” creator KJ Steinberg (“This Is Us“) lends “Amelie” meaning beyond a line of trivia. Stylistic homages to Jeunet’s film are subtle and abundant throughout these eight episodes, particularly in scenes awash in the dreamy scenery and light unique to Perugia.

A tinge of naïveté and goofiness in Grace Van Patten’s naturalistic portrayal is reminiscent of Audrey Tautou’s bubbly and eccentric character in Jeunet’s film. However, this suggests more about the relative malleability of our persona at the age of 20, when we’re still figuring out who we are and often look to movies for inspiration. “Amelie” is defined by its namesake character’s sweetness and her mission to bring joy to strangers, but that drive is the result of a life spent in isolation.

Recognizing this undercurrent explains why Knox’s confrontation with the seemingly merciless Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor who did everything in his power to deprive her of her freedom, bookends “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.” Like some quirky girl from the movies, she’s seeking an ending where she’s understood and doing her best to understand others.

That theme eventually smooths the unjust twists in a case propelled by preconceived notions and a hunger for villainy that boosts ratings and magazine circulations. Knox filled that role by being easy to malign. She was just a giddy university undergraduate still acclimating to Italian culture when irresponsible coverage of Kercher’s crime transformed her into a sexualized femme fatale.

On November 2, 2007, Kercher was found dead in their flat. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed in the neck. Knox and Sollecito alerted police after Knox came home to find the front door open. Days later, they were arrested, imprisoned and eventually convicted in 2009.

Only much later have the circumstances leading to that guilty verdict come to light. The police kept Knox awake for days and coerced her into implicating the man she worked for, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, in Kercher’s murder.

They hit Knox several times, coercing her to sign a written confession in Italian, which she barely understood. She recanted hours later, but authorities pressed the case forward. The document was later ruled inadmissible at trial, but earlier this year, Italy’s highest court upheld Knox’s separate conviction for committing slander against Lumumba.

(Disney/Andrea Miconi) Francesco Acquaroli and Roberta Mattei in “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox”

The absurdity piled up from there. Mignini (played by Francesco Acquaroli, delivering an excellent and at times terrifying performance) served as both the case’s lead investigator and its prosecutor. The jury for her joint trial with Sollecito was never sequestered, guaranteeing the barrage of outrageous fallacies surrounding the proceedings tainted their judgment.

They served four years in prison until their conviction was overturned on appeal in 2011. Knox quickly returned to the United States, only to be reconvicted along with Sollecito in 2014. Italy’s Supreme Court ultimately annulled the case against them in 2015.

Meanwhile, another man, Rudy Guede, was convicted separately of the murder in 2008 after his DNA was found at the scene and inside Kercher’s body. He served 13 years of a 16-year sentence and was released in 2021.

But while Knox’s character assassination dominated the news, Americans didn’t hear much about Guede. Instead, the American and British public gorged on the sensationalism because that was the supposedly “official” record. Perhaps the most cogent statement Knox makes about her case’s ongoing allure is at the top of that 2016 documentary, when she says that if she’s guilty, that makes her the ultimate figure to fear because she’s not the obvious suspect.

“But on the other hand, if I’m innocent, it means that everyone’s vulnerable,” she concludes. “Either I am a psychopath in sheep’s clothing, or I am you.”

“The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” came into being partly at the insistence of Monica Lewinsky, a fellow executive producer who encouraged Knox to dramatize her story after working with Ryan Murphy on the uneven 2021 FX limited series “Impeachment: American Crime Story.”

Be reassured that Knox’s close participation here is an asset. In an episode of Knox’s podcast released on Tuesday, Lewinsky repeats an observation Aaron Sorkin shared with her that biopics are portraits, not photographs. With this, Knox, Lewinsky and their fellow producers paint an especially energizing work sharpened by societal course correction. It takes a bit of distance, I think, to comprehend the extent to which procedural absurdity worked against Knox and Sollecito.

Before Kercher’s murder corkscrews their story, “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” luxuriates in the postcard-perfect view from the apartment Amanda shared with Meredith and two Italian women. As exchange students, Amanda and Meredith enjoy relative freedom to explore, party and score the odd joint from a friendly group of young men living downstairs.

The series introduces Amanda and Raffaele (played by Giuseppe De Domenico) after they’ve been dating for a little over a week and can’t keep their hands off each other — not even steps away from a crime scene. Van Patten and De Domenico plausibly capture that youthful ardor while making it obvious why their displays of affection translate poorly to local police officials unprepared to investigate a murder that quickly drew international scrutiny.

Unethical, salacious coverage further tilted the scales against them. Maybe this explains the creator’s choice to make the towering media malpractice that cemented Knox’s infamy a minor character as opposed to the acid geyser etching her supposed malice into our collective memory.

Van Patten’s interpretation of Amanda’s transformation from a carefree young woman into a determined survivor is poignant and provocative in equal measure. Locked away in prison, Amanda has little sense of the assaultive coverage’s prevalence and scope. She can only think about whether she wants to keep living, training our focus on how her vulnerability transforms into a determination to be fairly heard. Of course, if Knox ever completely succeeds in that, people will stop asking whether she did the crime.

(Disney/Adrienn Szabó) Grace Van Patten as Amanda Knox in “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox”

There isn’t much about this case that hasn’t been picked over or dramatically reenacted through third parties. Knox has shared her perspective in various forums, including on podcasts, her 2013 memoir “Waiting To Be Heard” and a follow-up titled  “Free: My Search for Meaning,” which came out in April this year.

But “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” marks the first time Knox herself has had a direct hand in her portrayal, even sharing a writing credit on the eighth and final episode. By that point, Van Patten’s Amanda has been convicted, reconvicted and robbed of her privacy when newspapers published the contents of her prison journal without her consent. Tabloids took pleasure in branding her a sexual deviant with an assortment of derogatory nicknames. “Foxy Knoxy,” the most common, was also among the tamest. She was also dubbed “Luciferina,” a “sex-and-drug-crazed she-devil,” a “witch of deception” and “Amanda the Ripper,” to cite a few. Top American newscasters, including Chris Cuomo, did their part to keep perpetuating the sleaze.

Italian authorities encouraged all this, concocting orgiastic murder fantasies and presenting them as fact to distract from the lack of evidence connecting Knox and Sollecito to the crime. It’s a real-life instance of stranger-than-fiction accusations shaping the fate of two young people who never could have guessed their lives would be forced down this path.

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Knox has established herself as a talented writer and a thoughtful, empathetic voice speaking on behalf of the wrongly accused, including herself. That profound empathy is reflected in the series’ choice to feature an episode told entirely from Mignini’s point of view, revealing the source of his obsession with God and the supernatural, good and evil. Informing his literal interpretation of justice in black and white terms are old crime movies. “Amelie” isn’t the only film coloring this tale.

As for whether this limited series might change how we view Knox, that seems to be less of a concern for her these days. “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” culminates with Amanda having built a life of purpose, marrying and becoming a mother, all parts of her story’s reclamation. Many who digested the case when it first unspooled may see little need to pick up this thread via a new dramatization, regardless of how compelling it is.

But plenty of people raised in the age of public trial and reputational execution on social media may find clarity in this highly personal version of a story that, for some, may never be definitively straightened out. Knox comprehends how knotty the process of reconciling with an ending that differs from what we want can be. Maybe others can find that understanding by viewing the version written by her own hand.

“The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” premieres with two episodes Wednesday, August 20 on Hulu. Next episodes stream weekly on Wednesdays.