I Swear review — an astonishing feelgood biopic about life with Tourette’s

i swear has emerged as a major awards contender, dominating the Baftas 2026 and securing Robert Aramayo the Bafta for best actor for his portrayal of a Tourette syndrome campaigner. That recognition matters because the film reshapes public conversation about Tourette’s while foregrounding the lived experience of a Scottish campaigner whose story moves from private struggle to public advocacy.

I Swear review: an astonishing feelgood film about life with Tourette’s

The film has been described as an astonishing feelgood biographical drama that chronicles John Davidson’s experience of Tourette’s. Spanning his teenage years to the present, the narrative follows Davidson’s first tics, the social fallout that follows and the longer arc by which relationships and institutions shape a life across decades.

John Davidson’s life on screen

I Swear opens with an expletive-laden outburst at Davidson’s MBE ceremony, signalling that swearing forms part of his experience while also allowing the film to stress that coprolalia affects only a small minority of people with Tourette’s. The story begins in Galashiels, Scotland, in 1983 when Davidson entered “big school. ” At first his tics are dismissed by teachers and classmates as attention-seeking; gradually they become impossible to ignore, developing into uncontrollable motor and vocal outbursts.

The shift in Davidson’s life strains his relationship with his father, played by Steven Cree, who had pinned hopes on his son’s promise as a footballer. The dream of a professional career collapses and is replaced by frustration and disappointment. Those consequences ripple outward to physical punishment at school and mounting conflict at home.

Tourette syndrome explained

Tourette syndrome is described in the film’s context as a neurological or neurodevelopmental condition named after the 19th-century researcher Gilles de la Tourette. It is characterised by tics — involuntary movements or vocalisations. Many people have simple tics, especially children. The official definition cited in the film’s coverage is motor and vocal tics occurring nearly every day over more than 12 months. There are two types of tics: motor and vocal tics.

Common motor tics often involve the head and neck and can include things like: unclear in the provided context. In more severe cases, people might have complex tics and orchestrated sequences of movements, for example turning in a certain direction or tapping something a certain number of times. These sequences often feel right to the person and must be completed to relieve tension.

The experience often begins with a premonitory urge — described as like an itch or the feeling before a sneeze — a buildup of tension that is relieved by the tic. People are often able to recognise this feeling before the tic, which is an important element of tic management. Tics usually have onset in childhood, typically in the early primary school years, but occasionally later in life. Tourette syndrome frequently follows a waxing and waning course: there may be periods where it is not noticed for weeks or months and then it returns. Tics can worsen in response to stress, such as the start of a new school term or moving house, and sometimes they worsen for no reason at all.

An illustration of the condition’s sudden impact on public performance is noted in an episode involving singer Lewis Capaldi, whose fans helped him finish a song at a concert after symptoms of his Tourette syndrome flared up and temporarily prevented him from performing.

Performance, allies and the film’s arc

Robert Aramayo plays Davidson and is credited with conveying the physicality of the tics with remarkable authenticity; this performance led to his Bafta for best actor. Thirteen years on from the earliest episodes, the story pivots toward transformation. After a long season of withdrawal and the conviction that Tourette’s disqualified him from work and ordinary sociability, Davidson begins to re-enter public life.

The turn is scaffolded by allies: Dottie Achenbach, a forthright mental health nurse played by Maxine Peake, and Tommy Trotter, the local hall caretaker played by Peter Mullan, help him to forge kinship beyond his family. Together they establish that Davidson’s Tourette’s is not a moral fault requiring apology; that recognition recalibrates his trajectory, shifting him from enforced quiet to self-acceptance and, in time, advocacy.

Stigma, narrative framing and the casting debate

I Swear frames Davidson’s experience through the concept of biographical disruption — the sudden onset of Tourette’s that unsettled both his sense of self and his imagined life trajectory. The film resists a simple, linear redemption narrative, refusing to resolve into a straightforward tale of triumph and instead foregrounding ongoing struggles rooted not only in tics, described as painful, agonising and exhausting, but also in the ignorance and stigma surrounding the condition. The greater harm, the film suggests, often lies in a community’s refusal to recognise tics as anything other than signs of deviance or madness.

The decision to cast an actor who does not have Tourette’s in the lead is identified as controversial and reopens the debate over disability drag; the coverage of that debate is truncated in the provided context and the remainder is unclear in the provided context.

Why the film matters now

The convergence of I Swear’s awards success and its careful framing of Tourette’s — stressing that coprolalia affects only a small minority and moving beyond sensationalisation — makes the film a focal point for public discussion about representation, stigma and what compassionate understanding looks like. The film’s portrayal of diagnosis, family dynamics, institutional response and pathways to advocacy serves as a narrative that many viewers and campaigners will continue to interrogate in the wake of its Bafta recognition.