The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox

Nothing thus far in Twisted Tale feels stale or rehashed. Rather, its all-encompassing embrace of Knox’s subjectivity allows viewers personal access to a story whose initial wrong-telling hypnotised the world. This version shows every sign of being even more scintillating than that erroneous original.

Fortunately, the main parts are held together by an unreservedly brilliant performance by Grace Van Patten as Knox.

The show lands on the more successful end of the spectrum [of shows like Pam & Tommy, Good American Family and Impeachment: American Crime Story] in part by leveraging the same true-crime framing that damned her.

Steinberg runs with the “Amelie” homage in the first and last episodes, especially, from applauding stuffed animals to a camera that rotates 360 degrees. However, in between, “Twisted Tale” becomes more serious as it explores the injustices that befall all the primary characters, not just Knox, but also the prosecutor, Mignini (Francesco Acquaroli), who sends Knox to prison.

Steinberg’s heightened, almost operatic storytelling approach of unusual camera angles, dramatic music, and lawyers assassinating the characters of innocent young defendants in passionate Italian, suits the proceedings’ weird mix of absurdity and frightening stakes.

It's occasionally overstuffed, and only offers a little extra insight that keeps it from being a complete rehash of what we already know. But, thanks to some excellent performances, appropriately atmospheric direction and a mostly balanced take on the subject, it's still a gripping watch.

To push the story past mere reenactment, the show adds fantasy interludes inspired by "Amélie." .... These bits never stop feeling abrupt or out of place, even if their purpose — to dramatize Knox’s naivete and alleviate the grimness of the verdict we all know is coming — is clear enough. More effective in this regard is Van Patten, who took over the role from Margaret Qualley and delivers work that’s both technically impressive (she speaks a lot of Italian!) and dynamic.

The big problem with The Twisted Tale, which can indeed feel impactful with its depictions of media harassment and police misconduct, is that it wants it both ways: The miniseries aims to point a finger at a global audience that was drawn to the salaciousness of the case—and, at the same time, leans into the true-crime fascinations that likely got it made in the first place.

While the series is beautifully shot, with amazing acting and a story that sticks relatively close to the original case (if neglecting or ignoring some of the minutiae), the series has a ghoulish quality to it that doesn't sit well when all is said and done.

There have been documentaries and other programmes made about the case, so did we need a drama lasting several hours about it 18 years on? Probably not. But Knox probably needed, and has earned, the catharsis. Maybe this will put an end to it.

While there are aspects of The Twisted Tale Of Amanda Knox that we found annoying and unnecessary, we appreciated how Grace Van Patten portrays Knox, showing the aspects of her personality that annoyed Italian authorities so much they sent her to prison for murder.

Created by K.J. Steinberg (“This Is Us”), the series is well-acted, well-written, impressively mounted, tonally contradictory, chronologically disjointed, overlong, stressful, exhausting, interesting both for its subject and stagecraft, and briefly inspirational.

For the most part, “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” doesn’t add enough new to the conversation for anyone who knows this story or has seen the very good Netflix doc titled simply “Amanda Knox.”

Van Patten (Nine Perfect Strangers, Tell Me Lies) does an admirable job with limited material. Yet .... For all its fidelity to the complicated facts of one of this century’s most infamous murder cases, Twisted fails to deliver the one element of Knox’s story that might be best expressed through scripted drama: insight into who its viciously caricatured, widely misunderstood subject really is.

There are some solid performances in the ensemble cast, but the series’s guiding Knox-innocent viewpoint, combined with Knox’s direct involvement, makes the whole thing feel like its primary objective is buffing out any remaining dings and dents in her public image rather than providing a new angle on a story we’ve heard many, many times over.

So much of what the drama tells us is true – Knox was maligned and mistreated, she was wronged and slandered, she had her life ripped away from her and transformed into something beyond her control and was courageous throughout it all. And yet by shoving these ideas down our throats, by turning her accusers into pantomime villains or bungling idiots, the drama does Knox a disservice.

For all the creative team’s personal intentions, The Twisted Tale’s sluggish pace, frustratingly narrow focus, and bizarre tonal shifts hold it back from becoming a definitive version of this tale.