The new miniseries The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, which dramatises the wrongful conviction and acquittal of the American student for the 2007 murder of British flatmate Meredith Kercher, has drawn criticism for its tone and purpose. The eight-part series, now streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally, was announced last year, 17 years after Kercher’s death in Perugia, Italy.
Kercher’s sister Stephanie voiced her dismay to The Guardian as filming began, questioning the value of revisiting the tragedy. The series has been driven by Knox, who along with ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and local drifter Rudy Guede was initially convicted. Knox spent almost four years in jail before her conviction was quashed in 2011, reinstated in a retrial in 2014, and finally overturned by Italy’s Supreme Court in 2015. Guede served 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
Knox’s ordeal has been widely documented. The Supreme Court cited “stunning flaws” in the investigation, and the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay her €18,400 in 2019 over flawed police interrogation. She has published two memoirs, a Netflix documentary, and several podcasts. Critics question what the new drama hopes to achieve beyond Knox’s existing narratives.
Tonal inconsistencies are a major flaw, according to reviews. Knox (played by Grace Van Patten) is presented as a quirky, jokey student, with inappropriate black humour woven into scenes of the investigation and trial. The series attempts to emulate the film Amélie, which Knox and Sollecito said they watched on the murder night, using colourful vignettes and magical realism. This approach, showrunner KJ Steinberg said, aimed to introduce Knox as a person before she was publicly vilified.
Clichés abound, from fading sound in interrogation scenes to a metaphorical trapped bird. The irreverent millennial voiceover, reminiscent of Inventing Anna or Apple Cider Vinegar, undermines the severity of the case. Nevertheless, after the gross injustice of a wrongful murder conviction, Knox’s desire to “reclaim” her narrative is understandable, even if the execution of this series falls short.
