FILM OF THE WEEK: I Swear - Reviewed by Roe McDermott

Kirk Jones’s I Swear is a moving, funny and empathy-filled film about what it means to live in a body and mind that won’t always obey you - and how the world reacts when it doesn’t understand. On paper, it sounds like a familiar British biopic, the kind that could have easily slipped into feel-good formula: a misunderstood man overcomes adversity with grit, charm and the kindness of strangers. But I Swear, set across the 1980s and 90s in the Scottish Borders, about real-life Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, never lets its sentimentality turn soft. It’s a story that acknowledges cruelty and isolation as fully as it embraces humour and grace.

The film begins at a mortifying moment. Davidson (Robert Aramayo) strides into a royal investiture to receive an MBE from the late Queen Elizabeth, and before he can even bow, blurts out, “Fuck the Queen!” The room freezes. The camera lingers just long enough to make us wince, then lets the laughter come - not cruelly, but as relief, an acknowledgment that embarrassment, in this story, is both inevitable and survivable. From there, Jones rewinds to the mid-80s, to the small town of Galashiels, where young John (a remarkable Scott Ellis Watson) first begins to realise that the strange movements and outbursts taking over his body are not simply quirks or bad behaviour.

The scenes of his adolescence are steeped in confusion and cruelty. At school, his peers throw punches on the playground, convinced he’s mocking them, while teachers inflict vicious corporeal punishment on him for disruptions he can’t control. At home, his mother, played by Shirley Henderson with brittle, heartbreaking precision, treats the manifestations of his condition like a moral failing of her son and an indictment of her as a mother. When he spits and swears at the dinner table, she forces him to eat separately from the family, sitting on the floor and facing the fire, as though shame might be contagious. The pain as this once confident, beloved boy sits alone, defeatedly crouched over his dinner like a beaten dog, is heartbreaking.

Jones does not flinch from showing how John’s behaviour draws hostility and fear from others. In adulthood, Aramayo’s John has learned to live with constant vigilance, yet his body remains unpredictable. There are moments of violence that sting - an accidental punch hitting someone’s face; hard, a pet startled into retreat; an eruption of words that sound like harassment - all unintentional. Jones and Aramayo handle these episodes with care and tragicomic clarity. They’re horrifying because they’re uncontrollable, and because we understand how easily they can be misread. The film’s gift lies in holding that contradiction: that John can be both blameless and feared, victim and perceived aggressor, and that this paradox defines much of his life.

Aramayo’s performance is extraordinary - not just technically, though he captures the restless physicality of Tourette’s with impressive precision, but emotionally, in the way he inhabits John’s mix of shame, humour and stubborn hope. There’s a quiet dignity in how he endures misunderstanding, and an irrepressible warmth that surfaces in the rare moments he’s accepted for who he is. When he finds friendship and surrogate family with Dottie (Maxine Peake), a former nurse with terminal cancer and a dry wit, and her husband Chris, the film blossoms into something close to joyful. Peake gives the film its second heartbeat - a woman who sees John’s tics not as flaws but as facts of life. Her affection is practical and unshowy, but transformative. She and Aramayo share some of the film’s best scenes, filled with an everyday intimacy that feels entirely earned.

Peter Mullan, too, lends the story depth and ballast. As Tommy, the tough but compassionate caretaker becomes one of the few people to treat John without fear or pity. He’s all wry understatement and hidden warmth. There’s a lovely symmetry in how Mullan and Peake, two of Britain’s most instinctive and humane actors, form the moral compass around John, quietly pushing him toward independence without ever claiming to “fix” him.

It’s to Jones’s great credit that I Swear never panders to its audience or sanitises its subject. The film shows the loneliness and fear of a young man who has been mocked, beaten and ostracised - yet it refuses to leave us there. The tone is often darkly funny, sometimes painful, always empathetic. Jones’s background in comedy (Waking Ned Devine, Nanny McPhee) serves him well here: he understands rhythm, when to let discomfort sit and when to let laughter in. The humour feels like a survival mechanism, a way to look pain in the eye and keep going. As John begins to find his voice and purpose as an educator and activist, the film gets into firmly crowd-pleaser territory, but the victories feel hard-worn and genuine rather than schmaltzy or manipulative. A scene where John and a girl with Tourette's tic and talk in a car together in a moment of absolute acceptance and understanding is remarkable, as the two witness and share each other's experience of the world, fully and without judgement.

The film’s soundtrack - New Order, The Smiths, Oasis - works less as nostalgic decoration than emotional punctuation, marking time and reminding us that this is story is in the past, but not too long ago at all. It’s a reminder of how quickly the world can learn and grow and change for the better, but also a reminder of the deep and lasting cost of that learning curve. Here’s hoping that audiences leave not only thinking about how ignorance around Tourette’s has impacted so many people, but how ignorance about so many conditions, experiences, realities, and identities is currently causing so much pain. We can learn and evolve – but we need to hurry up. People are paying the price for society's ignorance every day, and deserve better.

I Swear could easily have tipped into piety or pity, but instead it finds grace in the chaos. It’s a portrait of a life marked by misunderstanding yet defined by courage, told with warmth, wit and compassion. Aramayo gives the performance of his career, Peake and Mullan bring enormous heart, and Jones directs with a steady, generous hand. The result is not just a story of survival, but a love letter to the human spirit - flawed, fragile, funny, foul-mouthed, feeling, and full of fight.

• Out now. Watch the trailer below. Written and directed by Kirk Jones. Cinematography by James Blann. Edited by Sam Sneade. Starring Robert Aramayo, Scott Ellis Watson, Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson, Peter Mullan. 121 mins