‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox' dramatizes the events around a case that drew a media spectacle

Los Angeles Times

17 hours ago

Amanda Knox, who became an international headline in 2007, when, as an American student spending a year in Perugia, Italy, she was (wrongly) accused of the murder and sexual assault of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, is now the subject, and executive producer, of 'The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox,' an eight-part docudrama premiering Wednesday on Hulu. (Her boyfriend of one week, Raffaele Sollecito, also wrongly accused, does not seem to have garnered similar attention, which might tell you something about misogyny in the prurient press, and its audience.)
The 'Twisted Tale' in the title — odd for a story of murder, rape and false imprisonment — suggests that we're about to see something sort of delightful, like 'The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack' or 'The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants,' an impression underscored by a prologue in the style of 'Amélie,' the whimsical French film the couple was elsewhere watching on the night of the murder; it ties the victim, the accused and her prosecutor/persecutor together in a sort of fairy tale. Like the very long end-title 'any similarity' disclaimer, concluding 'The series includes Amanda Knox's perspective on events related to the murder of Meredith Kercher,' it allows the series to be something less than true: a tale.
People tell themselves stories to live, to haul out that Joan Didion quote once again, which unavoidably requires making up stories about other people. These events involved a lot of people, only one of whom is an executive producer of this series, based on her memoir, 'Waiting To Be Heard.' (Knox co-wrote the finale, as well.) One assumes that some of those other people might see this project as exploitation, or object to how they've been represented, though any dissenting voices will be drowned by a publicity machine that will market this as a true story, disclaimer aside. In light of the series, Knox has been recently profiled in the New York Times, alongside star Grace Van Patten, and in the Hollywood Reporter, alongside fellow executive producer and scandal survivor Monica Lewinsky, who encouraged her to make the series.
These are qualities — faults? — 'Twisted Tale' shares with every docudrama ever, a problematic genre much beloved by filmmakers and actors; still, as frequently as such projects arise, especially in the age of true crime, we wouldn't still be talking about 'Citizen Kane' today if it simply had been 'Citizen Hearst.' We should at least keep in mind as responsible viewers and citizens that what we're seeing here, however factual in its crucial points, scrupulous in its details, and engaging in its philosophy, and however faithfully the actors embody their real-life models, it's unavoidably an impression of the truth, built out with imagined scenes and conversations and made to play upon your feelings. It isn't journalism. And to be clear, when I speak of these characters below, I'm referring only to how they're portrayed in the series, not to the people whose names they share.
Created by K.J. Steinberg ('This Is Us'), the series is well-acted, well-written, impressively mounted, tonally contradictory, chronologically disjointed, overlong, stressful, exhausting, interesting both for its subject and stagecraft, and briefly inspirational, as Amanda (Van Patten) — arrested, jailed, convicted, acquitted, re-convicted and definitely re-acquitted — becomes a voice in the innocence movement ('My freedom mattered and I was going to make the most of it as long as I had it') and returns to Italy, a wife and mother, for something like closure.
Echoing the 2016 Netflix documentary 'Amanda Knox,' which tells the story (up to that point) in a streamlined but thought-provoking 90 minutes, there has been some care to represent different points of view, with episodes dedicated to Raffaele and prosecutor cum investigator Giuliano Mignini (Francesco Acquaroli), also introduced 'Amélie'-style. (As to Kercher, we hear only that 'she likes to sunbathe and dance and read mystery novels' — though anything more would be presumptuous.) Raffaele, the superhero-loving son of a troubled mother, made himself into a 'protector.' Mignini, who lost a brother to 'lawlessness,' sees his work as heaven-sent — though he was also inspired by Gino Cervi as Georges Simenon's detective hero in the 1960s TV series 'Le inchieste del commissario Maigret.' (He adopts that character's pipe and hat.) 'I made a vow to God,' he says, narrating, 'no matter the disapproval or dissent, deviant, ritual murders would not go unpublished on my watch.'
On the basis of Amanda being a loud American, and a self-described weirdo, whose response to news of the murder struck some as insufficiently emotional; from bits and pieces of supposed physical evidence, later discounted; and from Mignini's own notions — including his feeling regarding the body, that 'only a woman would cover a woman with a blanket' — the police quickly assemble an elaborate, completely imagined theory based on a sex game gone wrong. (That Knox was in possession of a vibrator and some condoms and brought men to the apartment she shared with Kercher and two Italian girls seemingly branded her, in 2007, as a pervert.)
Subjected to an extremely long interrogation without adequate representation in a language she imperfectly understands, and in which she has trouble making herself understood — detective superintendent Monica Napoleoni (Roberta Mattei) is the angry Javert — Knox signs a false confession that also implicates her sometimes boss, Patrick Lumumba (Souleymane Seye Ndiaye). She quickly recants, to little avail. (Knox has not been acquitted of slandering Lumumba.) That the actual killer is arrested, and convicted, merely causes the police to rewrite their story a little, while still focusing on Amanda and Raffaele. The press runs leaks and accusations from the authorities; and a fascinated public eats it up, spitting out opinions onto social media.
Director Michael Uppendahl employs a variety of styles to get the story told. Some scenes are so natural as to seem improvised; others employ heavy tactics — an assaultive sound design, flash cuts — to evoke the pressure Amanda is under, from both the self-satisfied authorities and a hectoring press. (Paparazzi is an Italian word, after all.) Stirring music underlies her final statement to the court; a letter sent by Amanda to Mignini is lit from within, like the deadly glass of milk in Hitchcock's 'Notorious.' While not inappropriate to a story in which fictions swamp facts, these zigs and zags can pull you out of the story rather than drawing you deeper in.
As Amanda, Van Patten (of the Van Patten acting/directing dynasty — Dick, Joyce, Tim, Vincent, with Grace's sister Anna playing Amanda's younger sister) is quite remarkable, switching between English and an ever-improving Italian. Acquaroli, quietly astonishing, brings humanity and the merest touch of weary humor to his stubborn policeman. Sharon Horgan plays Amanda's intense, demanding mother, with John Hoogenakker as her more subdued father. In a scene pulled straight from the 'Amanda Knox' documentary, a reporter asks him when there'll be a film: 'The longer you wait the less her story is going to be worth.' 'We do not think of our daughter as a hot property,' he replies.
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