Stillwater: How Tom McCarthy and Matt Damon’s controversial thriller differs from Amanda Knox’s ordeal

Amanda Knox recently spoke out against Stillwater (Picture: Focus Features/Getty)

*Warning: Spoilers for Stillwater ahead*

Tom McCarthy and Matt Damon’s new film Stillwater has already faced controversy, with Amanda Knox speaking out about her ordeal being fictionalised and the impact it could have on her life.

Knox spent nearly four years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.

She was freed in 2011 and definitively acquitted in 2015. Rudy Guede was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Ever since, the fascination with what she went through has remained, with the most recent example being Stillwater, directed by McCarthy, which Knox took aim at for potentially fuelling incorrect information about the case, despite the filmmaker saying it was ‘directly inspired’ by her.

Stillwater stars Damon as an unemployed oil rig worker from Oklahoma who sets out alongside a French woman (Camille Cottin) to prove his convicted daughter’s (Abigail Breslin) innocence.

Claiming that McCarthy did not approach her, Knox explained on Twitter: ‘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 pointed out that viewers may be led to believe aspects of the film were true about her own case – so where does the story differ?

Knox was innocent and not involved in Kercher’s murder

Knox said McCarthy and Damon didn’t reach out to her (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)

In the film, Breslin’s character is said to speak to the killer to ask him to help her get rid of her roommate, which is where it majorly strays away from the real story.

Knox pointed out that this divergence from the truth could harm her reputation and fuel conspiracy theories.

‘McCarthy told Vanity Fair that “Stillwater’s ending was inspired not by the outcome of Knox’s case, but by the demands of the script he and his collaborators had created.” Cool, so I wonder, is the character based on me actually innocent?’ she said on Twitter.

‘Turns out, she asked the killer to help her get rid of her roommate. She didn’t mean for him to kill her, but her request indirectly led to the murder. How do you think that impacts my reputation?

‘I continue to be accused of “knowing something I’m not revealing,” of “having been involved somehow, even if I didn’t plunge the knife.” So Tom McCarthy’s fictionalized version of me is just the tabloid conspiracy guilter version of me.

‘By fictionalizing away my innocence, my total lack of involvement, by erasing the role of the authorities in my wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person.’

Knox and Kercher had a purely platonic relationship

Kercher was murdered in 2007 by Rudy Guede (Picture: PA)

In Stillwater, Abigail Breslin’s character, who’s thought to be the figure loosely based on Knox, and her roommate have a sexual relationship.

Knox has spoken out about that element, saying on Twitter: ‘I was accused of being involved in a death orgy, a sex-game gone wrong, when I was nothing but platonic friends with Meredith. But the fictionalized me in #STILLWATER does have a sexual relationship with her murdered roommate.’

The Italian authorities ‘already had the killer in custody’

In Stillwater, Damon’s character tracks down the real killer, with Knox saying the fictionalisation ‘erases the corruption and ineptitude of the authorities.’

‘What’s crazier is that, in reality, the authorities already had the killer in custody,’ she continued.

‘He was convicted before my trial even began. They didn’t need to find him. And even so, they pressed on in persecuting me, because they didn’t want to admit they had been wrong.’

More: Matt Damon

Speaking to Variety about the impact the film could have on her, Knox went on: ‘I’m not anticipating getting wrongfully convicted again based upon “Stillwater.”

‘But I do live to this day with this infamy of being associated with a crime and having my name be the defining factor of a crime that I had nothing to do with, and this story just reiterates that same problem for me.’

McCarthy has not yet responded to Knox’s comments.

Metro.co.uk has contacted reps for Tom McCarthy for comment.

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