Whatever questions remained as to the kind of character that would come out in Lifetime’s film Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy didn’t take long to answer when the movie aired for the first time last night. Knox, as played by Hayden Panettiere, is self-absorbed, cold, drug-addled, manipulative, and most of all: guilty.Sure, the film injects some doubt into Amanda’s guilt: the coercion by Italian police, the several different types of DNA found at the scene–barely any (if any at all) of it Amanda’s. But the principal thrust of Knox’s character is that she is emotionless to the point of being sociopathic–just the kind of person who could have raped and murdered Meredith Kercher.The good news about the film is that despite its sensationalism, it’s entertaining (though the story itself is so fascinating it would have been hard to butcher). Panettiere delivers an emotional, if one-dimensional, performance, and the physical resemblance between her and the real Knox is uncanny.Knox’s mother, played by Marcia Gay Hardin, is also well-acted. She mixes a mother’s protective instincts with an undercurrent of doubt that hints that she may have misread her daughter all along–great qualities for a fictional film, or one about a long-concluded crime.Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy goes down as the first Lifetime film that I (and probably many other of the film’s millions of viewers) have ever made it completely through.None of this, however, excuses the poor taste in which the film has been contrived and aired.This scene is cut in the American version of the film.As has always been the case, the main problem is not as much the movie’s portrayal of Knox as its timing in doing so. Deep into her appeals trial, which has seen several positive developments for Knox, the film and the media circus that has surrounded the film has all but guaranteed that the overdramatic recreation will taint opinions that could decide whether she is freed or not.In what almost seemed an attempt to right the film’s wrongs, Lifetime presented Beyond the Headlines: Amanda Knox, a more well-balanced documentary with testimony from all sides immediately after the movie.The film’s lasting accomplishment will obviously be for Lifetime, which hasn’t had this much hype for one of its movies, well, ever. Whether Knox will pay for the network’s ratings boost with her freedom remains to be seen.Follow The Daily Weekly on Facebook and Twitter.