‘Stillwater’ slammed by Amanda Knox: Matt Damon takes advantage of me

Amanda Knox, an American exchange student who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison for the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher before being acquitted in 2015, was the inspiration for the freshly released “Stillwater “, starring Matt Damon and directed and co-written by Tom McCarthy.

Although “Stillwater” tells a fictional story, McCarthy didn’t hesitate to verify Knox’s name during the press cycle, and a Vanity Show interview with his name in the Knox inspired title to take on Twitter Thursday to slam the film and the creative team.

In the film, Abigail Breslin plays Allison Baker, an American foreign student imprisoned in a prison in France after being convicted of murdering her roommate, a plot that shares some – but not all – similarities to the Knox story. Damon plays Bill, his conservative father, who travels from Oklahoma to Marseille, hoping to catch the real killer and set her free.

The thread, which was also posted on his Medium blog, opens with Knox discussing his identity and the thread between the film and the actual events: “Is my name mine? Does my face? What about my life? My story? Why is my name used to refer to events I haven’t attended? I come back to these questions because others continue to take advantage of my name, face and story without my consent. Most recently the movie “Stillwater”.

“By fictionalizing my innocence, my complete lack of involvement, by erasing the role of authorities in my wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person,” Knox writes. And with the star power of Matt Damon, the two are sure to profit greatly from this fictionalization of the ‘Amanda Knox Saga’ that will leave many viewers wondering, ‘Maybe real life Amanda was involved in it. one way or another. “”

Knox also took issue with the film being labeled the “Amanda Knox saga” in the press, even though she was acquitted of the crime.

“In the wake of #metoo, more and more people understand how power dynamics shape a story,” she writes. “Who had the power in the relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? The president or the intern? It’s important what you call a thing. Calling this event the “Lewinsky scandal; does not recognize the vast power differential, and I am glad that more and more people are now calling him the “Clinton Affair,” which gives him the name of the person with the most agency in this series of events. I would like nothing more if people referred 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. But I do know that my wrongful conviction and the trials that followed became the story people obsessed with. I know they are going to call it the “Amanda Knox Saga” in the future.

In the essay, Knox also invites Damon and McCarthy to be guests on his podcast, “Labyrinths,” to discuss the film.

“Stillwater” hits theaters weeks after a moving five-minute standing ovation at its Cannes premiere. Focus Features is also banking on the film as an awards player, setting up the first Oscars FYC Special Screening and Special Conversation of the season for the title.