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Title: Amanda Knox (2016)
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| Credited cast: | |||
| Amanda Knox | ... |
Herself - Murder Suspect
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Meredith Kercher | ... |
Herself - Murder Victim
(archive footage)
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Raffaele Sollecito | ... |
Himself - Murder Suspect
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Giuliano Mignini | ... |
Himself - Lead Prosecutor
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Nick Pisa | ... |
Himself - Freelance Journalist, The Daily Mail
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Stephanie Kercher | ... |
Herself - Meredith's Sister
(archive footage)
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Rudy Guede | ... |
Himself - Convicted Murderer
(archive footage)
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Valter Biscotti | ... |
Himself - Rudy Guede's Attorney
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Stefano Conti | ... |
Himself - Independent Forensic Expert
(as Dr. Stefano Conti)
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Carla Vecchiotti | ... |
Herself - Independent Forensic Expert
(as Dr. Carla Vecchiotti)
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Curt Knox | ... |
Himself - Amanda's Father
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Arline Kercher | ... |
Herself - Meredith's Mother
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| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Anderson Cooper | ... |
Himself
(archive footage)
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| Donald Trump | ... |
Himself
(archive footage)
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American exchange student Amanda Knox is convicted and eventually acquitted for the 2007 death of another student in Italy.
Why do I dislike this film? On the day it was released I wrote a scathing review here and then, a few hours later, withdrew it after a colleague suggested I was being unfair. So now I've watched it again and my opinion has changed – a little.
The pre-release publicity for this film described it as 'definitive'. Given the wealth of material it had to draw from it could quite easily have been so. But it's not and for me that's a problem.
Towards the end of the film Knox points to the fact that the truth of this story lies solely in the evidence or, rather, the lack of it. She's right. You don't need to be an expert to understand that the prosecution story that has she and Sollecito returning to the murder scene with a bottle of bleach and cleaning up every last trace of themselves whilst leaving Rudy Guede's trace evidence for the police to find is absurd. Indeed it's more than absurd, it's impossible. It was this assertion back in 2009 that convinced me of their innocence and it probably remains the single most damnable part of the prosecution's entire fantastical story. But this film doesn't mention that at all. Yes, it touches on the lack of Knox and Sollecito's DNA at the scene but, in doing so, it fails to explain why that's so important.
There are circumstances in which criminals commit crimes and leave no trace evidence behind. But, in this case, the prosecution had Knox, Sollecito and Guede engaged in an orgy of violence that would have littered the room with countless traces. It's the very fact that the prosecution case was almost entirely unsupported by reliable evidence and how that led to the prosecutor's painfully tortuous and inconsistent theories that's so important in this case but the details of that are all but ignored.
This film might have played well in 2012, shortly after Knox and Sollecito were first acquitted but in 2016 it feels trite. The real issues at this point in time are how such a blatantly fantastical prosecution case could have led to a conviction in a western European country where fairness and justice are supposedly sacrosanct. As many have pointed out over the years, in Britain or the USA it's highly unlikely that Knox and Sollecito would even have been arrested given the evidence. So why did the Italian system allow this matter to get so frighteningly out of hand? It's all very well blaming prosecutor Giuliani Mignini. That's easy. But, in doing so, the film allows the very system that enabled this case to proceed unchallenged to walk away scot-free.
Perhaps the filmmakers felt that the story and its implications were known well enough to leave out the details. But, if they did, then why spend most of the film retelling the parts of the story most people certainly do know, whilst omitting the parts that many still don't? Perhaps they felt it was primarily a story about Knox and Sollecito and their personal journey through Italian judicial hell. But, if they did, then we needed to know who they are as people and filming them ostensibly gazing into camera entirely in midshot against a 1990's photographer's backcloth really isn't the way to do it.
The film lacks narrative drive and it left me strangely unmoved. I'm usually an emotional viewer easily upset by stories of this nature. Netflix's recent release 'Audrie and Daisy' left me sad, distraught and angry. And yet, in this film, when I should have been feeling Knox's obvious distress, I felt nothing. That's a fault of the film's structure and its visual style certainly doesn't help. It worries me because it leaves Knox open once again to the tyrannous gaze of ill-informed people who amuse themselves by forming inappropriate opinions about her guilt or innocence. Already some of the Twitterati are suggesting her whole appearance was a sham, a performance designed to reinforce a lie. Some of them are saying far worse than that. It's impossible to put an end to all of such nonsense of course, but this film made it easier to snipe when it really didn't need to.
It's certainly not a bad film but I can't honestly say that it's a particularly good one either. It's greatest failing is that it lacks most of what a documentary on a subject like this demands: analysis, insight and revelation. Such an approach was essential at this point in time and the fact that it failed to take it is deeply disappointing.