There are few things more uncomfortable than telling a story without knowing whether or not the most pivotal event, the single biggest action that sets everything else into motion, actually involved any of the lead characters, which is the unfortunate circumstance that Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy finds itself in. Produced in the immediate aftermath of the trial and legally threatened by the principal characters involved (the title character in particular), Amanda Knox takes one of the more sensationalized non-news items of the past few years and does a kind of chicken dance around them, never postulating anything about the case that isn't already in the public domain. That wouldn't be such a problem if they had done anything other than make Amanda Knox the lead character (played by Hayden Panettiere), but that's exactly what they do, asking us to invest our feelings in someone who may or may not have brutally murdered her room-mate. Surprisingly, that turns out to be a pretty big factor in determining whether or not you want to spend time with someone.
By now, the facts of the Amanda Knox case are familiar to anyone in the Western world who had an interest in learning them (another check against this production), so their recounting would only do so much good here. The film opens, predictably, with a series of high-profile anchors dictating the buzzwords that have all come to be associated with the case, before jumping into the day that Meredith Kercher's body was found by Italian police while Knox and Rafaelle Solecito (Paolo Romio) stand outside. After flashing back for about a half-hour to a murder suspect's awesome European vacation (her courtship scenes with Solecito would not be out of place in a Heigl vehicle), the film then settles down and concentrates on the trial, and on the somewhat peculiar way that she behaved in its aftermath. In the background, Marcia Gay Harden acts concerned and overwhelmed as Knox's mother, while Italian prosecutor Guiliano Mignini (Vincent Riotta) makes his success in the case an entirely personal matter.
With little to reveal about the case and less that it could plausibly infer, Amanda Knox is forced to rest upon the star power of an above average cast. Panettiere’s performance is certainly capable given what she has to work with (mostly, react plausibly to some of the most ridiculous Italian accents in recent memory), but it too, like the lead subject, is a cipher. As the film never comes to any conclusion as to whether or not Knox really did kill Kercher, Pannettiere is forced to keep things at a distance so that in any given scene, she could be playing either a hard-working all-American girl, or a sociopathic killer. It’s a little easier in scenes when she (as Knox apparently did) makes out with her boyfriend and does cartwheels in the hours following her learning about Kercher’s death. It’s a little bit harder when she’s speaking to others in totally inferred conversations based only on the testimony of a convicted killer. When she says, “I can’t believe that this is happening,” it could mean any number of things, but it comes across as seeming that she’s just kind of dim.
Amanda Knox’s case is still going on in Italy, with new DNA evidence apparently offering a route towards exoneration or least a retrial. She was also none too happy about this film, with her legal team doing their best to prevent it from airing, and even trying to pull clips down from off the internet. They really needn’t have worried, as this film contributes little that the international media (their best friend and worst enemy) have not functioned to do already, which is provide more attention to the case, and sensationalize it beyond all rational approach. Whether or not she did is almost beside the point by now, and it’s certainly beside the point of this film; whenever a public consensus settles down on either side of the issue, Amanda Knox will be remembered as fairly inconsequential to the ultimate outcome, if remembered at all.
Bonus Features
The DVD also features Beyond the Headlines: The Amanda Knox Story, a television produced documentary on the subject.
"Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy" is on sale July 12, 2011 and is not rated. Crime. Directed by Robert Dornheim. Written by Wendy Battles. Starring Hayden Panettiere, Marcia Gay Harden, Vincent Riotta, Paolo Romio, Amanda Fernando Stevens.
