Amanda Knox regains control of her story and it’s quite fascinating (critic)

Its name has been synonymous in various facts for almost 20 years. Today, the American student sentenced to murder in Italy – then innocent – tells what happened to her in a mini -series produced by her care. A lyrical rereading which owes a lot to the touching Grace Van Patten, very invested.

Word to Defense! After seeing its story told long, wide and across in the media, after the TV movie with Hayden Panettiere, Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater or the Netflix documentary… This is perhaps the ultimate mini-series on the Amanda Knox affair.

Produced by Knox herself, this Disney stamped version returns in detail to the news that held America in suspense for almost a decade: the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher, English student murdered in Pérouse, Italy, in 2007. Very quickly, suspicions are on her roommate, a young American with behavior deemed too casual to be honest. In the form of a breathtaking fiction, we follow his fierce fight to prove his innocence, regain his freedom and understand why the authorities and the whole world condemned him so quickly.

Built like a pure legal drama, the Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox deconstructs the mechanics of a dependent investigation, highlighting the improvisation of local authorities, the overwhelming weight of the media and the faults of a system. The story marries the point of view of Knox, victim of a Kafkai gear, until his sentence of 26 years in prison (before being definitively innocent and released in 2015).

On the bottom, this rereading is clearly in discharge, but it has the merit of telling a version still little explored with so much care. Amanda Knox intends to regain control of her story and her story, and she does it with manifest sincerity.

If the whole remains uneven, oscillating between fragile lyricism and applied reconstruction, the mini-series is mainly worth for the sensitive interpretation of Grace Van Patten. The young actress, revealed in Nine Perfect Strangers, manages to give flesh to a character long reduced to a media image. Replacing Margaret Qualley at the raised foot (Part Turn Blue Moon by Richard Linklater and Honey Don! D’Ethan Coen instead), Van Patten even learned Italian during the shooting. She captures this slightly offbeat, almost suspicious intensity, which has always fascinated at Amanda Knox and who also led her to her loss. Unjustly, a priori.

The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, in 8 episodes, to see from August 20 on Disney+.