Amanda Knox Accuses Matt Damon's Film 'Stillwater' of Distorting Her Story

Justin Kirkland
·4 min read
Photo credit: Focus Features
Photo credit: Focus Features
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In a 44-tweet thread, Amanda Knox has accused Stillwater director and screen-writer Tom McCarthy and actor Matt Damon of manipulating the events of her life unjustly for entertainment, and continuing a public narrative that she is a murderer who was unfairly freed. She argues that the creative team, who has admitted that her life served as inspiration for the plot, did not have her consent and that the resulting film, out now, does further harm to her reputation.

Knox, a U.S. citizen, first became the subject of international headlines in 2007 when she was accused and then found guilty of murdering her then-roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy. She was convicted twice, and initially sentenced to 26 years in prison. Knox appealed, and burglar Rudy Guede was eventually found guilty of the murder. But while Knox was officially exonerated, the public has continued to focus primarily on Knox and the "what-ifs" surrounding the trial.

The story has been adapted multiple times in pop culture as well; typically these works place Knox in a damning light.

And that leads us to Stillwater and McCarthy, who has openly stated that Knox's story is part of his inspiration for the film. In her own comments, Knox focuses on quotes McCarthy made in Vanity Fair. For context, McCarthy said:

There were so many characters around the case that I really followed pretty closely. But really the first thing that I took away from it was, what would that be like as an American student to go over [to Europe] for what should be one of the most exciting moments in a young-adult life and to find yourself in that tragedy? There were just so many layers to that story that kept anyone who was following pretty riveted…. We decided, ‘Hey, let’s leave the Amanda Knox case behind,’ 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.

From Knox's perspective, however, much of the film's "fictionalizations" echo rumors and allegations that were made against her during the trial as well as the years that followed her release. In particular, the character that is constructed most like Knox has a sexual relationship with her roommate, who ends up being killed. Knox has maintained that she and Kercher had a purely platonic dynamic, something she says she now feels she must reiterate again.

Knox raises concerns about how many outlets have also referred to the ordeal over the last decade-plus of covering it, calling out places that frequently refer to the case as the "Amanda Knox saga." Keeping her in the center of how the case is known, she argues, continues to be a detriment to her reputation: "I would love nothing more than for people to refer to the events in Perugia as 'The murder of Meredith Kercher by Rudy Guede,' which would place me as the peripheral figure I should have been, the innocent roommate," she writes.

It's likely a lesson Knox has learned the hard way as the tale of Kercher's death continues to get revisited in TV and film, but she goes on to admit that she can largely forgive draw of adapting the case, and instead takes more issue with how her own depiction, however loose, has fictionalized her own person. As she put it: "There’s money to be made, and you have no obligation to approach me. What I’m more bothered by is how this film, 'directly inspired by the Amanda Knox saga, 'fictionalizes' me and this story."

She then invites Damon and McCarthy to be guests on her podcast, Labyrinths. It's a choice, but it's hers to make.

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