The lawyer for Meredith Kircher’s family has blasted Amanda Knox‘s show in front of cameras – and urged the public to remember the murdered 21-year-old instead.
Knox posed up a storm on Tuesday night and kissed her husband at the premiere of a dramatized mini-series about her ex-flatmate’s harrowing killing.
The now-38-year-old and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in their first trial of killing Meredith but after another round of flip-flop verdicts, they were ultimately exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015.
The divisive public figure has now executive-produced an eight-part series – ‘The Twisted Tale Of Amanda Knox’ – which explores the aftermath of the 21-year-old’s student’s killing.
Commenting on the new show, Francesco Maresca told The Mirror: ‘The important thing is that Amanda Knox clearly wants this case to continue. It would be nice and dignified to watch a program or TV show where everything is reconstructed, remembering the life and smile of poor Meredith.
‘Instead, once again, we have to witness an attempt to reshuffle the cards, and where the trailer states, “Amanda fights tirelessly to prove her innocence and regain her freedom”.
‘Once again, the focus is on Knox.’
Amanda Knox grinned and shared a smooch with her husband – at the premiere of a dramatized mini-series of the real-life case that saw her accused of killing her flatmate during a year abroad
Despite the bleak nature of the show, Amanda sported a floral summer dress accentuated with bow-tie detailing, while her husband Christopher Robinson sported a trendy mesh blouse worn under a light grey suit
However, her manner in photos from the premier of the show earlier this week were positively jovial, as she and Rafaello smiled alongside their actor counterparts Grace Van Patten and Giuseppe De Domenico.
Despite the bleak nature of the show, Knox sported a floral summer dress accentuated with bow-tie detailing, while her husband Christopher Robinson sported a trendy mesh blouse worn under a light grey suit.
Meanwhile Rafaello donned a cheerful cornflower blue blazer and matching slacks for the occasion.
The series, which is executive-produced by both Knox and feminist campaigner Monica Lewinsky – who has spent years moving on from a sex scandal with then-President Bill Clinton – has drawn mixed reviews – especially due to the lack of active involvement from the victim’s family.
Despite that, the Guardian‘s Lucy Mangan gave it four stars out of five, albeit lambasting an ‘often dodgy’ script.
‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox has its flaws,’ she penned. ‘The mannered, Wes Anderson-lite openings to each episode sit uneasily with the harrowing hours to which they give way and the script – particularly in those openings – can be dreadful. ‘We were just getting to know our young selves in this charmed and ancient city,’ says Knox in a voiceover early on.
‘And later: ‘Does truth actually exist if no one believes it?’ At one point, investigator Monica (Roberta Mattei) describes Knox providing ‘unsolicited information in crude American spasms’.
‘Fortunately, the main parts are held together by an unreservedly brilliant performance by Grace Van Patten as Knox, in English and Italian (halting at first, fluent by the end of Knox’s incarceration), the ebullient, naïve, overconfident, shattered young woman caught in so many currents and cross-currents it seems a miracle that she ever made it back to shore.’
The Times was more critical, with Carol Midgley writing: ‘As you would expect, the drama is very much on Knox’s side, presenting her as a co-operative and pleasant young woman caught up in an unending utter nightmare in a foreign country.
‘Yes, a bit crass that she kissed and cuddled her boyfriend at the police station, but then who wouldn’t want some comfort when their friend had just been found brutally murdered?’
Elsewhere, ranking it only two stars out of five, Nick Hilton wrote for the Independent: ‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox knew that it was swimming in morally murky waters.
Knox and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito (pictured) were convicted in their first trial of killing Meredith but after another round of flip-flop verdicts, they were ultimately exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015
Elsewhere, Knox recently said she believes the spirit of her murdered roommate Meredith (pictured) still ‘haunts’ her
However, her manner in photos from the event earlier this week were positively jovial, as she and Rafaello smiled alongside their actor counterparts Grace Van Patten and Giuseppe De Domenico
‘The series was originally supposed to be called Blue Moon, but transitioned to its rather twee title ahead of release. And that should give some indication about the unusually bubbly tone of this eight-part series.
”Full of hope, curiosity and the naivety of youth, I embarked on my romantic Italian adventure,’ Knox informs audiences, like she’s setting up an episode of Amanda in Perugia. The series leans heavily on these voiceovers to explain Amanda’s quirks (such as providing an impromptu gymnastics display at the police station or wearing a T-shirt to court bearing the slogan ‘All you need is love’ in all caps).
‘The show’s visual flourishes – like a juror juggling computer-generated ears to illustrate their exposure to inadmissible evidence – mirror its goofy, confident protagonist. It also makes the tone of the series very distinct from the grim BBC procedurals we’re used to in Britain, owing a debt of gratitude to schlocky tastemaker Ryan Murphy (creator of the American Horror Story anthology series).
Speaking to the Guardian as filming for the show kicked off last year, Meredith sister explained the victim’s family found it ‘difficult to understand how the series served any purpose’.
‘Meredith will always be remembered for her own fight for life, and yet in her absence, her love and personality continues to shine,’ she added. ‘We will forever feel this indescribable void but we live by Meredith’s standards with dignity.’
It comes as Knox has revealed how Monica became her mentor as she tried to rebuild her life.
The two women met at a speaking engagement in 2017, just two years after Italy‘s highest court exonerated Knox and Raffaele in Meredith’s murder.
Knox told The Hollywood Reporter how she was nervous and had begged the event organizers to let her speak with Monica in private.
Monica Lewinsky, 52, and Knox pictured on the red carpet as they celebrated the premiere of their show The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox
The former White House intern obliged, and even made Knox a pot of tea as she shared some guidance from her years trying to move past her sex scandal with then-President Bill Clinton.
‘She had a lot of advice about reclaiming your voice and your narrative,’ Knoxsaid. ‘That ended up being a turning point for me.’
Years later, Knox shared her desire to tell her story on screen in an interview with The New York Times – and upon seeing it, Monica jumped on board.
Together, the pair wound up assembling a creative team, including This Is Us executive producer K.J. Steinberg and famed producer Warren Littlefield, to create ‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox,’ a limited series for Hulu.
After years of planning, the duo celebrated the premiere of the show on the red carpet Tuesday.
Just hours earlier, Knox released the latest episode of her podcast, Hard Knox, in which she and Monica spoke of the importance of telling the stories of those who survived scandal.
Speaking of the decision, Monica noted that she does not often pay attention to a story after it fades from headlines.
‘I don’t think about “How is this person rebuilding their life?”‘ she said, her voice cracking as she apparently started to tear up.
But, she said, she thinks it is important to ‘understand, as my therapist calls it, the long tale of trauma – and that it’s not even just the person, but the collateral damage for people’s families.’
‘It’s not the story of like, being a person and being gutted and then building your life back.
‘And having to find yourself again,’ Monica said, noting that both of their scandals arose when they were in their 20s.
‘You think you know everything, you think you know who you are and it’s then ripped away from you,’ she reflected.
‘It’s reconfigured and reflected back to you as a monster that you never saw yourself as, that you actually aren’t.’
During that time, Knox said, ‘it’s hard to remember that you have value as a human.’
‘I think it’s a better product because I was able to share really personal and intimate things about, you know, my life that wasn’t just like a Hollywood gloss over reality,’ she added.
‘Like it becomes dirtier in a good way because it has all the messy humanity and you have all these scenes that I, you know, remember being in the writer’s room being like, “This is an actual thing that has happened” and they were like, “You can’t make this stuff up.”‘
But the duo also sought to play on the ‘anatomy of bias,’ aiming to showcase how events unfold and are perceived through different people’s perspectives.
‘It’s the way we story tell and it’s the way we process a story in our own minds that is impacted by everything we’re bringing to that moment that has been shaped by bias upon bias upon bias,’ Lewinsky said.
‘Every interaction that we have with a person is not just a straight interaction,’ Knox added. ‘It is colored by the context that we all carry.
‘All of us are little universes inside of ourselves and we collide with each other,’ she said.
