Amanda Knox says Stillwater is 'fictionalizing away' her innocence and profiting off her story
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Amanda Knox is speaking out about the new movie Stillwater from director Tom McCarthy, saying the drama is harmful to her reputation by profiting off her story while "fictionalizing away" her innocence in the real-life case.
"Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER," Knox began in a lengthy thread posted to Twitter on Thursday.
Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER.
/ a thread— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) July 29, 2021
Stillwater is a thriller starring Matt Damon as Bill, an American oil-rig worker from Oklahoma whose estranged daughter Allison (played by Abigail Breslin) has been imprisoned in Marseille, France for a murder she claims she didn't commit. The film then turns into a story about a father racing to exonerate his child.
Many critics have pointed to the comparisons to Knox's own story. The 34-year-old became a household name through the 2007 sexual assault and murder case of Meredith Kercher, who was Knox's roommate in Perguia, Italy. Knox had been convicted of the crime but was later acquitted. Knox tells her own story about the failures of the media and court system that smeared her in the 2016 Netflix documentary Amanda Knox.
Knox called out certain critics positioning Stillwater as a reimagining of "the Amanda Knox saga" and describing her as a convicted murderer. She also pointed to an interview between McCarthy and Vanity Fair in which the filmmaker said, "We decided, 'Hey, let's leave the Amanda Knox case behind' [for the film]. But let me take this piece of the story — an American woman studying abroad involved in some kind of sensational crime and she ends up in jail — and fictionalize everything around it."
"Director Tom McCarthy tells Vanity Fair, 'he couldn't help but imagine how it would feel to be in Knox's shoes.' …But that didn't inspire him to ask me how it felt to be in my shoes," Knox tweeted. "He became interested in the family dynamics of the 'Amanda Knox saga.' 'Who are the people that are visiting [her], and what are those relationships? Like, what's the story around the story?' I have a lot to say about that, & would have told McCarthy…if he'd ever reached out."
Reps for Focus Features, which distributes the film, did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.
Lou Rocco/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images; Jessica Forde / Focus Features Amanda Knox speaks out about the 'Stillwater' film 'fictionalizing away' her innocence.
Referring to McCarthy's quote about taking a "piece of the story," she added, "That story, my story, is not about an American woman studying abroad 'involved in some kind of sensational crime.' It's about an American woman NOT involved in a sensational crime, and yet wrongfully convicted. And if you're going to 'leave the Amanda Knox case behind,' and 'fictionalize everything around it,' maybe don't use my name to promote it. You're not leaving the Amanda Knox case behind very well if every single review mentions me."
Knox further drew comparisons between Stillwater fictionalizing her story and how the media and courts fictionalized her story at the time of her trial. She wrote how the film's telling of events "erases the corruption and ineptitude of the authorities." She also revealed a major spoiler from the ending of the film, asking how McCarthy thinks this twist impacts her reputation.
"I continue to be accused of 'knowing something I'm not revealing,' of 'having been involved somehow, even if I didn't plunge the knife.' So Tom McCarthy's fictionalized version of me is just the tabloid conspiracy guilter version of me," Knox wrote. "By fictionalizing away my innocence, my total lack of involvement, by erasing the role of the authorities in my wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person."
Read Knox's full thread on Twitter.
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