Written And Directed by Kirk Jones
John Davidson: "The problem is not Tourette's, the problem is that people don't know enough about Tourette's."
After the uproar of last week's BAFTAs, this movie was something I needed to watch. I'll admit that I don't have an extensive knowledge on Tourette's but I was familiar with real life campaigner John Davidson. This movie was about the earlier part of his life.
The movie began with his early days as a 12 year old and when played by Scott Ellis Watson. He had aspirations to be a footballer but it was around this time his Tourette's had started to come into play. It was something that also saw his parents Heather (Shirley Henderson) and David (Steven Cree) desperate as well.
The movie mostly focused on an older version of John, played by Robert Aramayo. We saw the strain between John and his mother while a chance reunion with John's old school friend, Murray Achenbach (Francesco Piacentini-Smith) had John moving in with the latter's mother, Dottie (Maxine Peake).
The relationship between John and Dottie was by far the best thing about the movie. Dottie's experience as a nurse factored into her empathy for John. Dottie seemed to be able to help John in ways that his mother wasn't able to. She helped him get a job in the community centre and John formed a close relationship with his boss, Tommy (Peter Mullan).
As the movie progressed, John had to witness Tommy's death, had been a victim of an assault and had interactions with the law. They weren't as understanding of his condition. He also learned to live on his own and even stepped up for the community centre after Tommy's death.
Towards the end of the movie, we saw the ways in which John was able to live with his condition and even saw the positive impact he was making within his community as more people were trying to understand Tourettes. From this movie alone, it's hard not to admire John Davidson.
- The end credits of the movie had clips from the John's Not Mad documentary as well as others.
- A lot of this movie did focus on John's meeting with the Queen and how that went down.
- Standout music: New Order's Blue Monday and Oasis's Stop Crying Your Heart Out.
- Chronology: This started in the early 1980s Galashiels, Scotland with most of the movie set in the 1990s and 2000s.
I would definitely recommend watching I Swear as a movie. It's a brilliant look into the condition and into the life of John Davidson. Robert Aramayo gave one hell of a performance throughout as do Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson and Peter Mullan.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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