I Swear (dir. Kirk Jones)

by | Oct 9, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 120 mins

UK Distributor: Studiocanal

UK Release Date: 10 October 2025

WHO’S IN I SWEAR?

Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson, Peter Mullan, Steven Cree, Adam McNamara, Scott Ellis Watson

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Kirk Jones (director, writer, producer), Georgia Bayliff and Piers Tempest (producers), Stephen Rennicks (composer), James Blann (cinematographer), Sam Sneade (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A young man with Tourette’s syndrome (Aramayo) struggles to live with his condition…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON I SWEAR?

I’ve mentioned a few times already that I am autistic, but I also strongly suspect that I may also have that pesky other neurodiverse condition known as Tourette’s syndrome. Though I have never been formally diagnosed as such, I have displayed numerous traits ever since I was fairly young, namely bodily tics and muscle spasms that I cannot control (and sometimes I even blurt out obscenities that I never intend), and while I’ve been fortunate enough to have had treatments throughout my life to keep them in check, a lot of them remain to this day. In fact, a few times over the years, I’ve given genuine consideration as to whether I should get it properly examined, so that I can have an official diagnosis and put certain worries to bed.

Never has that consideration been amplified for me than after viewing writer-director Kirk Jones’ I Swear, an extremely empathetic portrayal of the condition that does such a grand job of replicating the lived-in experience of being someone with Tourette’s that it may well move you to tears (of sadness and laugher, both complimentary).

It tells the story of John Davidson, the Scottish-born campaigner for Tourette’s who, as we see in the film, had a pretty rough time growing up with the condition at a time when very few people even knew what it was. As a young teen (Scott Ellis Watson) in 1983, he’s a well-to-do chap on the verge of starting secondary school and vying for a promising football career, but as soon as the tics start creeping in, he’s shunned by his classmates, cruelly punished by faculty members – remember, this was a time when corporal punishment was still active in most schools – and, most upsetting of all, inadvertently breaks up his parents, much to the disapproval of his mother Heather (Shirley Henderson) who makes him eat in front of the fireplace on account of his involuntary spitting of food.

Things aren’t much better thirteen years later, when a now-adult John (Robert Aramayo) not only still has the condition, and quite badly too, but his academic and employment prospects have all gone out the window, leaving him utterly directionless in life. However, he soon befriends former mental health therapist Dottie (Maxine Peake) who actually shows him kindness and understanding towards his condition, more than anyone else has ever shown him, and with her help he ends up securing a job at a local community centre under kindly caretaker Tommy (Peter Mullan) as well as making steps towards his much-needed independence. Despite all this, societal ignorance of Tourette’s proves a difficult barrier for John, which eventually drives him to get out there and educate people on how best to handle the condition.

It’s an incredibly inspiring story, one that Jones captures with a genuine crowd-pleasing tone that goes through a wide variety of emotions without contradicting or overlapping one another, but also one that, in places, leaves you seething with anger. Specifically, at how much (or how little, in this case) the world really didn’t understand not just Tourette’s but neurodiversity as a whole until fairly recently, and how so many people like John potentially fell through the cracks of society because of the lack of treatment and care in place for them. In earlier scenes especially, Jones creates an upsetting atmosphere as John encounters mistreatment at every turn, even by his own family who actively shun him and make him out to feel worthless for the simple crime of having physical and verbal tics. Later on, harrowing scenes of him being assaulted and reprimanded by authority figures further stipulate the bleak disconnect between basic comprehension of such conditions and what society deemed as nothing more than “an attitude problem”. One can only imagine how hard life must have been for people like John to go through at this point in time, but Jones does a grand job of showing how rough it could be, and even more so of how he was eventually able to make a difference in the way that people think.

I really saw a lot of myself in this protagonist, for while my (presumed) Tourette’s comes nowhere close to matching the kind that John is depicted as having, I could strongly identify with a lot of what he goes through in this film. An excellent Aramayo inhabits the role with a profound degree of empathy, allowing the viewer to see well beyond the tics and find the heart and soul of a person who means the best but constantly feels as though he’s always at arm’s length from the rest of the world because of what other deem to be abnormalities, all encompassed in a lead performance that anyone with a neurodiverse condition can find at least a few recognisable traits within. For me, it was his feelings of isolation and anxiety that I identified with the most, as even a simple invite to a family dinner causes major trepidation for him out of fear of what they’ll think of his constant swearing and physical outbursts. While I can’t say that I’ve ever had those exact worries, I have always been nervous about approaching people who may not accept me and all my autistic traits, which has led to a lot of internal fears about how I’ll come across to others and, in one or two extreme cases, caused me to contemplate removing myself from the equation altogether (thoughts that are physicalised in an extremely heartbreaking early sequence).

But beyond the rather grim internal struggles it depicts, I Swear can also be really funny. Much of the humour comes from the utterly shocking things that John blurts out (to where I think this movie sets a record for the number of times the C-word is uttered in a 15-certificate film), but crucially neither Jones nor Aramayo have us laughing at him for spitting out such language, even when in the presence of now-departed royalty. Instead, they find warmth and even optimism in his profane tics, to a point where they seem rather endearing after a while, even when he’s saying things that few people could get away with (example: “I use spunk for milk”). There are also points where comedy and general joy arises from therapeutic moments, such as a memorable scene where John finds himself in a car with another young person with the exact same condition, and their back-and-forths are bluer than a reenactment of Avatar with actual Smurfs, but while funny it also comes with a great feeling of catharsis as you feel just as elevated as they are once they’ve got it all out of their system.

In lesser hands, or worse still ones that themselves do not understand Tourette’s syndrome, I Swear could have come off as cloying, manipulative and ultimately trivial. But thanks to a profound empathy for both its lead figure and his neurodiverse condition, it bursts through the ceiling as a rousing representation that gives a voice to people with involuntarily loud voices. Most of all, it could well be life-changing for anyone who may see it and realise that their own traits may well be like that of John himself, so don’t be surprised if the number of Tourette’s diagnoses go up as a result of this film. In fact, I myself may well be among that figure.

SO, TO SUM UP…

I Swear is an extraordinarily empathetic depiction of living with a neurodiverse condition such as Tourette’s syndrome, with writer-director Kirk Jones expertly showing both its pitfalls and unexpected optimism through the eyes of central subject John Davidson, played remarkably by Robert Aramayo in a performance that will put him on the path to stardom.

Five out of five stars

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