Entertainment

Knox-ed Up

As the mother of an honors student and athlete who did her junior year abroad in Italy, I can probably relate better than most other TV critics to the horror that befell Amanda Knox — and now to Lifetime’s controversial new movie airing next Monday night, “Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy.”

Knox, an honors student and athlete who also studied in Italy, ended up being convicted of participating in a gang sexual assault on, and then murdering, her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, in 2007.

Never once have I doubted that Knox was railroaded.

Now, as Knox, who is serving a 26-year prison term for the murder, is about to start an appeals trial, Lifetime is airing its original movie about the whole thing. Attorneys for Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito have tried to get the movie pulled. They fear it will contaminate the trial. And they’re right.

After watching the movie, I may not have actually changed my mind about her innocence — but for the first time, I sure have doubts.

That’s not because it is one-sided.

Despite what you may have heard, it isn’t. Everything is taken from witness and trial testimony and transcript.

In the movie, Knox, played superbly by Hayden Panettiere, is a sweet Seattle student who decides to study for a year in Italy. She finds the perfect place to live with three other females, including Kercher (Amanda Fernando Stevens).

After three idyllic months, all hell breaks loose.

As presented by the American media back then, Knox, was unfairly accused along with boyfriend, Sollecito (Paolo Romio), of the crimes after doing a huge amount of drugs and having wild sex with a homeless drug dealer, Rudy Guede (Djibril Kébé). Guede, a drifter, ran to Germany immediately following the crime. The whole thing sounded insane.

The movie at last spells it all out — from the time the cops showed up at Knox’s house without being called, to Knox doing cartwheels in the police station — after she and Sollecito made out — to her lies, their blasé attitudes and finally Sollecito giving her up to the cops to save his own skin.

Was she just a dopey student acting inappropriately, convicted by minuscule bits of DNA — or was she really a sociopath? I’ve got my doubts now. No wonder her parents want the movie pulled.

Meantime, if the Italians get their way, Knox’s parents (played by Marcia Gay Harden and Clive Walton) won’t even be able to visit their child. They are now facing five years in Italian jail themselves for libeling the Italian police. Wait, you can accuse the prime minister of anything you want, but you can’t say the cops hit your kid? What?