I Swear review and reaction as a biopic about Tourette’s wins a top acting prize
i swear has returned to headlines after Robert Aramayo’s award win, and critics are calling the film an "astonishing feelgood film about life with Tourette’s" that reframes a controversial subject. The biographical drama of Scottish campaigner John Davidson charts his first tics, family fallout and later advocacy.
I Swear frames a life from Galashiels to public campaigning
Melina Malli says the film follows John Davidson from his teenage years to the present, tracing the first tics and their social fallout. Davidson’s story begins in Galashiels, Scotland, in 1983 when he entered "big school, " and the early motor and vocal tics were dismissed by teachers and classmates as attention-seeking gestures before becoming uncontrollable outbursts.
How the film shows change across decades
The narrative follows thirteen years of consequence and, at that point, 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 reenter public life. Allies Dottie Achenbach (Maxine Peake) and Tommy Trotter (Peter Mullan) help him forge kinship beyond his family and shift him toward self-acceptance and advocacy.
Symptoms, stigma and an MBE scene that crystallises the conflict
Swearing forms part of Davidson’s experience — the film opens with an expletive-laden outburst at his MBE ceremony — but the film stresses that coprolalia affects only a small minority of people with Tourette’s and moves beyond sensationalising symptoms. The tics portrayed are described as painful, agonising and exhausting, and the film foregrounds how ignorance and stigma compound that harm.
Tourette’s explained: definitions and lived experience
The package republished with the film’s renewed attention notes Tourette syndrome is a neurological or neurodevelopmental condition named after 19th-century researcher Gilles de la Tourette. It is characterised by tics, involuntary movements or vocalisations. The official definition given is motor and vocal tics nearly every day over more than 12 months. There are two types of tics: motor and vocal. Common motor tics often involve the head and neck. They can include things like: unclear in the provided context.
Premonitory urges, onset and the course of tics
The reporting explains an initial "premonitory urge" feels like an itch or the feeling you get before you sneeze — a build-up of tension relieved by the expression of the tic — and that people often recognise this feeling, which is an important part of tic management. Tics usually have onset in childhood, typically in the early primary school years, though occasionally later. Tourette’s often runs a waxing and waning course and may be not noticed for weeks or months before returning. Sometimes tics worsen in response to stress such as the start of a new school term or moving house, and sometimes they get worse for no reason at all.
Performance choices and the debate over representation
Robert Aramayo plays Davidson, and Malli praises his physical conveyance of the tics as remarkably authentic. Casting an actor who doesn’t have Tourette’s in the lead is described as controversial and reopens debate over disability drag — a choice some critics argue sidelines disabl
Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates. Read our Privacy notice. This article was originally published on February 24, 2023, and is being republished after Robert Aramayo won the Bafta for best actor for his portrayal of a Tourette syndrome campaigner in I Swear.
Fans of singer Lewis Capaldi helped him finish a song at a concert after symptoms of his Tourette syndrome suddenly flared up and temporarily prevented him from performing; that anecdote is offered as one recent public example of symptoms affecting performance and audience reaction.
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