“A film about what it means to live in a world that would rather deny you than understand you.”

Kirk Jones may not be a director one expects to find on a major festival slate. His career has largely been associated with crowd-pleasers and lighter fare, such as Nanny McPhee, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. His last appearance at TIFF was in 1998 with Waking Ned Devine, over a quarter century ago. And yet I Swear, his latest work, proves Jones more than capable.  The film tells the real-life story of John Davidson, a Scottish man who has lived with Tourette’s Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Unlike so many directors who either drown such a story in sentimentality or reduce it to poverty porn, Jones approaches it with heart, humor, and deep respect. 

The film begins in Scotland, 1983. Davidson is on the cusp of adolescence, played with heartbreaking precision by Scott Ellis Watson. Until this point he has lived without Tourette’s, but as he enters high school his first tics appear and later intensify into coprolalia, echolalia, and sudden jerks and violent movements. In class and in daily life, he loses control of words and says things he never wanted to say. The school punishes him, his friends vanish, and as a promising young footballer, his opportunities evaporate as he no longer can control his body and mind in the way that he wants to. Watson’s performance is devastating, and he portrays the onset of anxiety, shame, and loneliness with piercing honesty. He doesn’t just act out the symptoms, he inhabits the humiliation of a boy who cannot make his body behave, and who is punished for it.

At home, matters are little better. His father (Steven Cree) abandons the family. His mother, played with extraordinary subtlety by Shirley Henderson, remains, but often treats him as a burden. Being forced to eat meals apart from the family becomes another punishment, a constant reminder of his differences, even in a place where he should be loved. Henderson avoids caricature, as her character is not cruel but overwhelmed and tired. She fails her son in ways that sting all the more for their smallness. Jones directs these scenes with restraint, letting the heartbreak accumulate rather than forcing it.

The second half of the film leaps forward. Davidson, now an adult played by Robert Aramayo, still lives with his mother and is heavily medicated on haloperidol, unemployed, and isolated. Aramayo, a fantastic actor of physical intensity, embodies him as a large, brawny man whose body betrays him even more under the gaze of a society that judges harshly what it does not understand. A chance encounter with an old school friend alters his trajectory. That friend’s mother, Dottie (played luminously by Maxine Peake), helps him taper off the medication, helps him find independence, and more importantly, treats him as fully human. Her presence in the film is revelatory as not saintly, nor a savior, but as someone who refuses to reduce Davidson to his condition.

A stunning sequence midway through the film dramatizes how misunderstood Tourette’s was in the 1980s. Davidson, in a club, accidentally strikes a man while having an uncontrolled tic. A fight breaks out and the man presses charges. In court, experts argue Davidson is faking because the condition was scarcely researched at the time. His first boss Tommy (Peter Mullan, who is magnificent) testifies on his behalf. “Why would you pretend to have a condition?” he asks. The line hits with devastating force, exposing how society always assumes fraud, how invisible differences are treated as if they were lies.

The film returns again and again to this question of visibility. At one point someone calls Tourette’s an “invisible disability.” But as Jones shows, it is not invisible at all. The tics are there, the movements are there, the anxiety is written on Aramayo’s body. The term “invisible” is not descriptive but dismissive as a way to deny and to invalidate. Another character remarks, “The problem isn’t Tourette’s. The problem is not enough people know about Tourette’s.” Knowledge helps, but as we see with Tourette’s, autism, and other neurotypes, knowledge alone is not enough. Awareness often produces more stigma and misinformation, and true understanding is not a given.

Jones avoids both pity and spectacle by weaving in comedy. His films have always carried a gentleness and levity, and here it saves the work from drowning in despair. Laughter does not erase the cruelty of how Davidson is treated, but it gives the film a humane rhythm, one that mirrors how people living with such conditions endure.  

Aramayo’s performance is astonishing. He and Jones spent time with Davidson to learn his mannerisms, his life, and his essence. There is ongoing debate about whether disabled, different, and neurodivergent characters should only be played by actors with those same conditions. Representation matters deeply, but in this case, Davidson himself could not have performed the role, and he was not even able to travel to Toronto for the premiere due to his inability to be in an airplane for long periods. Aramayo does not appropriate the condition, but he channels it with care and fidelity. His work never feels like caricature but like empathy. 

Late in the film scientists develop a device to alleviate some of the symptoms of Tourette’s. Importantly, Jones underlines again and again: “It’s not a cure, but it will give you relief.” The difference matters. Society is obsessed with cures, with fixes, with erasing differences, even when nothing can cure intrinsic conditions. Jones resists this, affirming that Tourette’s, like autism and other neurotypes, is not something to be cured. It is part of being human. The film’s stance is compassionate and, sad as it is to say, radical in today’s world.  Davidson does not need to be fixed. He needs to be respected and understood.

“What did I do to deserve this?” Davidson asks. It is a question I have asked myself, during meltdowns, during moments of extreme shame. A close friend once teased me, “Have you ever been called a monster?” He meant it jokingly, because of my size, but the words echoed. For neurodivergent children, passing may be possible when young, when non-volitional acts are more likely to be excused. As adults, it becomes harder as we become more visible and more judged. I Swear understands this, framing the adult Davidson as a large man whose body and tics make him a constant target. Jones and Aramayo capture this tension beautifully, forcing the audience to confront not only the condition but the prejudice layered upon it.

With I Swear, Kirk Jones has made a film that surprises precisely because it is so deeply caring. It’s not sentimental or exploitative, but humane, funny, and devastating.  By centering Davidson’s humanity and refusing to make his condition the butt of a joke or the source of pity, Jones proves himself more than a crowd-pleaser. He proves himself to be a director capable of telling urgent, necessary stories with love. I Swear is not only a film about Tourette’s. It is a film about dignity, about difference, about what it means to live in a world that would rather deny you than understand you.