Critic Reviews

I Swear is not looking for pity. It’s looking for empathy and understanding, as if to say there is no such thing as good or bad disabilities.

It will make you cry, it will make you uncomfortable, but at the end of the film's runtime, it will leave you with a feeling of profound satisfaction that even the most heartfelt movies struggle to replicate.

Just lovely. Tourette syndrome has not been afforded its cinematic dues, but what an affable, funny character to explore it with in John Davidson — and what a performance from Robert Aramayo.

This is an absorbing, compassionate film.

I Swear is a crowdpleaser that doesn’t make a spectacle out of its subject, nor mines the darker chapters of their life for tearjerking sentimentality.

Empathetic, funny and myth-busting – there are 300,000 children and adults living with TS in the UK alone whose condition will be better understood for this film – it gives you permission to laugh at the situation while feeling only compassion for the man.

While this stirring dramatization of Davidson’s life hits conventional narrative beats, sensitive handling and a remarkable central performance from Robert Aramayo do heartwarming justice to a remarkable life.

There’s a hint of repetition in the mid-section and a schmaltzy third act courtroom scene. But all flaws are overcome by Aramayo’s technically precise and heart-rending turn. It’s astonishing.

The story, while unique enough in its presentation of Tourette’s, follows the same patterns as any number of other feel-good disability dramas, but all the actors are so believably in touch with their humanity, in all its messiness, that they make the material sing.

The film is inescapably hilarious too, though – such is the weird power of swearing when the swearer can’t keep a lid on it.