Amanda Knox is speaking out against Stillwater, saying it’s profiting from her personal trauma, while also distorting her image. In the film, Matt Damon, 50, plays an Oklahoma construction worker named Bill whose daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) is charged and convicted of murder while in France.
Damon’s character fights to get the case overturned. Fourteen years ago, Knox was convicted for the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher while in Italy; the conviction was later overturned, but the prosecutors claims that she and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollicito killed her in a sex game gone wrong landed her in jail for four years.
Knox, now 34, has been open about her personal journey, and is now speaking out against Stillwater. She tweeted: “Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER.”
She continued: “Everyone else in that 'saga' had more influence over events than I did. The erroneous focus on me by the authorities led to an erroneous focus on me by the press, which shaped how I was viewed. In prison, I had no control over my public image, no voice in my story.”
Director Tom McCarthy admitted to being inspired by her case. He told Vanity Fair: “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. … What's the story around the story?”
McCarthy said, “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.”
Knox said the filmmakers did not “ask me how it felt to be in my shoes,” saying that “I have a lot to say about that, & would have told McCarthy…if he'd ever reached out.”
“And if you're going to 'leave the Amanda Knox case behind,' and 'fictionalize everything around it,' maybe don't use my name to promote it,” she added. “You're not leaving the Amanda Knox case behind very well if every single review mentions me.”