Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: TV, Crime, True Crime, Disney
Brenna Cooper
Viewers have been left divided by the first few episodes of a new series depicting the trial of Amanda Knox.
In November 2007, university student Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and murdered in her accommodation while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy.
Her roommate Knox - a US student studying in the city - and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were later arrested and charged with the 21-year-old's killing, alongside a third man, Rudy Guede, whose fingerprints were discovered at the scene.
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Knox and Sollecito were found guilty and received 26 and 25 years behind bars. However, this would be reversed in 2011, seeing the pair released and later exonerated in 2015.
Meanwhile, Guede would receive 30 years in prison, later reduced to 16 years after a successful appeal.
Since her release, Knox has established herself as a figure in the media, having released a memoir, been involved in activism for wrongly accused prisoners and hosted numerous podcasts.
Her latest project is a TV dramatisation of her story, co-produced with Monica Lewinsky, titled The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
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Based on real-life events, Grace Van Patten plays the titular role of Knox and follows her journey to prove her innocence against authorities who seem determined to return a guilty verdict.
Watch the trailer here:
The first two episodes are currently available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu, with the series receiving mixed reactions from viewers.
At the time of writing, the series currently has a score of 72 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and 5.7 out of 10 on IMDb.
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"Starting this on my lunch break, and I can't help but feel irritated by it within the first 10 minutes. This is shot in a way that feels so off, almost cheerful and cheeky? Not to forget really disrespectful towards the victim," wrote one person on X.
"I've always felt that Amanda Knox has a right to tell her story, and I've read her book and watched the documentary, but I can't get past the Amelie pastiche at the beginning of this drama. It seems like a bizarre narrative frame for such a serious story," penned a second in a Reddit post on the topic. "I was thinking the same thing, the title really isn’t the right tone," agreed a second person.
"So far the series is whacko imho starting off as if it’s Emily in Paris or something," added a third.
While the series is billed as one which focuses more on the subsequent miscarriage of justice rather than the initial murder, several people were also concerned about how the series would come across to the Kercher family.
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"Oof. Clocked Amelie straight out of the gate, and just feeling so sad for Meredith Kircher’s [sic] family with how this is being presented," read one comment, while another noted Meredith's sister Stephanie's statement in response to the show, which read: "Our family has been through so much and it is difficult to understand how this serves any purpose."
However, not everyone had a negative reaction to the initial episodes, with many people saying the series highlighted 'the reality of false confessions & the interrogation tactics that produce them', adding: "Shows like Making a Murder, When They See Us, the Yogurt Shop Murders & the Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, educate millions. Keep them coming."