Well, it’s certainly been quite an eye-opening week or so. The whole BAFTAGATE thing, an inordinate number of people (Americans) showing utter ignorance, certain celebrities (Jamie Foxx) proving themselves as the clueless imbeciles that they truly are. And in the middle of all of that, a man with a recognised neurological condition being ridiculed and belittled for doing nothing wrong other than having an incurable neurological condition. If only there were a film that could explain what living with Tourette’s was like.

I Swear follows the life of John Davidson, beginning in 1983 Scotland with John as a 12‑year‑old goalkeeper-in-the-making. He’s bright, talented, and on the cusp of something promising, until the tics start. Small at first, then louder, sharper, and increasingly impossible to ignore. Before long, John is involuntarily shouting some truly horrific things, and the fallout tears through his family. His father leaves, his mother is left to cope, and John’s world shrinks as his tics grow.

By 1996, John finally receives a diagnosis: Tourette syndrome. He’s given medication and… that’s about the extent of the support. His relationship with his mother frays under the weight of misunderstanding and exhaustion. Eventually, John moves in with an old school friend whose mother, Dottie (a former mental health nurse with terminal cancer) becomes the first person to truly get him. She helps John understand his condition, his triggers, and himself. From there, the film follows John through the highs, the lows, and the outright absurdities of living with Tourette’s, culminating in his transformation into an advocate whose work earns him an MBE from the Queen.

I didn’t come into I Swear blind. I had already seen the documentaries (John’s Not Mad and the rest) and always found John to be sharp, compassionate, and far more self-aware than most adults, even as a teenager. As a grown man, he’s become something extraordinary: a tireless, empathetic force for Tourette’s awareness. No exaggeration, John Davidson is one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever learned about.

As for the film itself? I think I’ll start with the actors. First up, Scott Ellis Watson, as young John, who carries the entire opening act with a maturity that’s frankly amazing for someone his age. It’s a heavy, complex role, and he nails every beat. Then there Shirley Henderson, as John’s mother Heather, who gives a raw, conflicted performance, torn between love and frustration, compassion and confusion. The first of the two main leads, Robert Aramayo, playing adult John, is on another level entirely. His performance is so layered, so lived-in, that he should be claiming every award coming to him The only reason he isn’t is because I Swear isn’t Oscar‑eligible. A crime, frankly.

For me, the best performance comes from the second lead, Maxine Peake as Dottie. I remember Maxine from playing the (somewhat ironic) dotty Twinkle character from the sit-com Dinnerladies, and here she is playing a role the furthest away from that. She’s the emotional backbone of the whole film, warm, fierce, funny, and devastating. It’s the best performance in the film, and one of the best of her career. Dottie’s philosophy is summed up perfectly in one quote:

Dottie Achenbach: “Right, John. If you’re gonna visit us more often, which, you know, I hope you are, I need to speak about your language. We have one rule in this house, and that’s if you do anything you can’t help, you never, ever have to apologise for it.”

Yes, it’s a cliché. Yes, I hate clichés. But I Swear is a genuine emotional roller-coaster. You’ll be laughing, crying, then laughing while crying, sometimes within the same scene. And crucially, you’re never laughing at John, you’re laughing at the absurdity of the situations Tourette’s throws him into.  Like, when young John is getting reprimanded by his head teacher at school for his tics, and after a talk, the teacher lets John leave his office under the one condition that he stops all this “silliness”, only for John to yell out “Ya cunt!” just as he’s about to walk out the door.

The film is full of moments where you’re just going to laugh at really inappropriate things. John, after learning that Dottie has cancer and six months to live, laughs in her face and tells her that she’s going to die. When receiving his MBE from the Queen, John shouts out, “Fuck the Queen!”. Or John boarding a train and his Tourette’s making him shout out “I’ve got a bomb!”. You can’t help but laugh at these moments, even though John’s condition isn’t funny, you are going to laugh. Just like when John is making a cup of tea for his new boss and shouts out (what has now become a war cry of support for John in the real world) “Spunk for milk!”.  You will laugh at some really inappropriate things… it’s almost as if you’ve developed tics as you watch the film, and that there has been a very conscious decision by writer/director Kirk Jones, to put you in John’s shoes. It’s a brilliant slice of filmmaking.

And yet, these funny (not funny) moments are interspersed with genuine heart-breaking scenes. Scenes that I don’t want to get into here, to avoid spoilers, but we get to see John struggle through some very tough times. This is where I Swear brings the emotional baggage that, after making you laugh, now makes you weigh up how tough, and sometimes, impossible it is to live with Tourette syndrome. There’s a delicate balance here, a tightrope that is being walked between the humour and the realisation of how awful Tourette’s is and how it affects, not only the direct sufferer, but those around them.

I Swear does a remarkable job of highlighting the issues surrounding Tourette syndrome without painting John Davidson as some kind of tragic figure. Instead, the film shows us that John is someone of incredible strength and determination to not just live his life, but push himself to help others and educate people on what Tourette’s is and the effects it can have on everyone. There are moments that may not be 100% real life accurate. For instance, there is a scene where adult John says that he can’t go to a library, for obvious reasons. This lays the foundations for a scene at the end of the film where John finally goes to a library. However, the real John had been in a library. In fact, I Swear ends with footage of the real John Davidson taken from the documentaries that he has been in, and it shows a young John in a library.

Still, this is not an issue or any kind of bullshittery by the film, this is the nature of the biopic. Take any biopic that has ever been made, every single one of them bends the truth and includes scenes made to play on the audience’s emotions. The documentary footage playing at the end shows how close that a lot of the scenes in the film came to the real thing. Even if some of I Swear was not exactly truthful all of the time, it still portrayed the real events in a thought-provoking and pretty damn accurate way.

For me, I Swear was the best film of 2025 (it was released last year) by far. It is a shame that, due to the rules, I cannot be eligible for any Oscar nominations, it would’ve been great to see this small, British film dominate at what some believe is the greatest film award ceremony on the planet. But it did very well at the BATFAs, a very British award, where the film claimed three BATFAs… well, two as its own film (Leading Actor and Casting) and the Rising Star Award for Robert Aramayo.

I Swear is powerful, hilarious, uncomfortable, uplifting, and deeply human. It shines a light on Tourette syndrome without turning John into a tragic figure. Instead, it shows him as he is: strong, determined, compassionate, and utterly unique. Watch the film. Watch the documentaries. And maybe, just maybe, reconsider the whole BAFTAGATE circus with a bit more context.

And folks… never forget…