Tourette’s syndrome was discovered in the 1980s and wasn’t something that people would discuss casually. Most people didn’t even know what it was during that time. However, forJohn Davidson, growing up in a small Scottish village meant living with a condition no one could name or understand. The new 2025 film I Swear, directed by Kirk Jones, takes us back to that time, telling us about John’s story, sharing genuine moments of his life, but more honestly and compassionately. And to clarify, it’s not a film about pity — it’s about what happens when difference meets disbelief. Davidson calls it “The change has been unbelievable” in one of his interviews on BBC radio.
When John was around ten years old, he started developing tics and involuntary movements. His family didn’t know how to deal with it, nor did doctors or anyone else. “We went back and forth to the GP with no luck,” he told Bosh in an interview. “The doctors said my mother was neurotic and that I’d grow out of it.” At that time, this type of condition wasn’t familiar to the doctors, so his mother was left fighting to prove her son wasn’t just misbehaving. John also described it in the interview as feeling like “all your emotions chucked into a pot, mixed up, and then the lid bursts open.” Living with TS was like a constant chaos inside your own body all the time. For most people, this could be used metaphorically in a sense, but for him, that was reality.
Davidson was one of the first people in Scotland diagnosed with this condition. In 1989, a BBC documentary called John’s Not Mad brought his story on screen and to everyone’s attention. Some people were shocked by his condition, while others felt sympathy. At this moment, everyone knew his name, but not everyone understood his life.
And that’s where I Swear comes in. Decades later, the film revisits John’s story and reframes it with care. Robert Aramayo, who plays John in the movie, gives a quiet and emotional performance. No, he doesn’t imitate John’s tics for effect, but instead he shows the human side of living with them — the exhaustion, the laugh, the frustration of being misunderstood. The Director said the film’s title came directly from John himself. “People think Tourette’s is all about swearing,” Kirk said in an interview at the Edinburgh Film Festival. “But John wanted people to know it’s not a choice. The title — I Swear — is his way of saying, ‘I swear it’s real.’
The film also captures glances of Scotland during the 80s with a painful precision — the grey schoolyards, the gossip in small towns, people whispering when someone doesn’t fit in, and the bullying waiting to strike in every corner. Jones doesn’t try to romanticise it. Instead, he shows us how isolation was built into everyday life, particularly for those who differed fromothers. Watching it now makes you realize that a lot has changed but also stayed the same.We know more about neurodiversity today, but there’s still a long way to go in how difference is treated — not just accepted but understood.
John has said that seeing I Swear brought his family closer. “It brought us back together — my mum, dad, brothers, sisters,” he told Bosh. “We sat there, and for the first time, we were all seeing the same thing.” The way Kirk captured this moment in the film is symbolic- it lets the people finally see what they once ignored.
What makes I Swear stand out is that it’s not trying to be an inspirational, feel-good type of movie. It’s not about John “overcoming” his condition or being turned into a symbol. It’s about being who you are, being a human, and being seen and understood, without any judgment. The camera doesn’t look away from his tics or try to soften them. Instead, it stays close, patient, gradually connecting the audience to experience what it feels like to be inside a body that you have no control over.
I Swear doesn’t focus mainly on Tourette’s syndrome, but on visibility. It’s about finally being understood for who you are. It’s about a man who spent his whole life trying to tell people the truth about himself and a country slowly learning to listen. The title becomes more than a statement. It is a promise: I swear it’s real. And now, after all these years, Britain finally believes and sees him.
