At the recent British Academy Film Awards ceremony in London, the BBC failed to edit out of the TV broadcast a guest hurling a racial slur at members of the cast of “ Sinners .” What seemed a cut-and-dry case of racism was actually something more. The alleged racist in question was janitorial custodian and Tourette Syndrome activist John Davidson, whose life was the subject of the biopic “I Swear,” one of the films being celebrated that evening and that is now playing in cinemas.
Directed by Kirk Jones, the disability melodrama balances broad sentimentality and focused advocacy with tremendous skill. It begins in 2019, with a nearly 50-year-old Davidson (Robert Aramayo) being appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his championing of Tourette’s, only for him to yell, “Fuck the Queen!” directly at Her Majesty. To unfamiliar viewers, it’s both a shocking and hilarious incident — one that transpired in real life — but as the film goes on to detail, this framing device is merely the latest chapter in Davidson’s lifelong struggle with involuntary tics and outbursts.
Jones then takes us back to Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, wherein Davidson’s working-class family quietly struggles to support his dreams of academia and soccer stardom. He’s played as an ordinary adolescent by Scott Ellis Watson, who embodies the gradual beginnings of Davidson’s neurological issues with subdued despair as they slowly sap his potential to ascend the class ladder. His unintentional twitches and inappropriate verbal eruptions are seen by his teachers and parents as insubordination, though one outburst in particular ends up instructive for how the film ought to be read.
While on a date with a classmate, a suggestive advertisement leads to Davidson blurting out a sexually charged comment. The evening ends early, but what becomes immediately clear is that our young protagonist is — for better, and undoubtedly for worse — incapable of dealing in implication, and is forced to let slip the first and often most inappropriate thought that pops into his head. Unlike most people, he doesn’t have the luxury of private thoughts; a unique kind of hell. But in tandem with the overt and explicit nature of this affliction, the film’s approach is one of distinct unsubtlety as well. If the symptoms of Davidson’s disorder are out in the open, then so, too, in the movie’s purview, should be every related outcome, from the character’s own struggles to that of his family. Jones is careful never to romanticize Davidson’s condition. When Davidson is a young adult in the 1990s, he is still living with his mother Heather (Shirley Henderson), who cares for him and ensures he takes his medication to keep his tics ever-so-lightly under control. Heather is now single after a split Davidson blames on himself, and she finds caring for her son too exhausting — a situation that the film and Davidson, no less, treat with empathy. This leads to Davidson moving in with his childhood friend Murray (Francesco Piacentini-Smith), whose ailing mother Dottie (Maxine Peake), a brusque mental health nurse, grants him the kind of patience and understanding he never had in his childhood. This helps set him on a new path to self-sufficiency, albeit one beset by new struggles as he enters the world on his own. More often than not, his flare-ups at inopportune moments lead to violent reprisals. On occasion, the operatic qualities of “I Swear” skew dangerously close to the kind of feel-good, faux-inspirational disability tales that have long populated movie award shows — “Forrest Gump,” “My Left Foot,” “The King’s Speech,” “I Am Sam,” the list goes on. However, Jones is careful never to romanticize Davidson’s condition. As much as the image of a young Davidson being banished to the fireplace at dinnertime (since he spits out his food) might tug at the heartstrings, the camera never lingers on this for too long, and presents it only as a sliver of Davidson’s reality, imposed upon him with mundane matter-of-fact-ness. Jones also makes great effort to search for a difference between centering the outward appearance of Davidson’s disability and the person he is underneath its most verbose manifestations. His approach depends on both Aramayo’s pathos-filled performance and the responses from those around him, helping the viewer understand the distinction between Davidson’s condition and the man who must endure it. Aramayo portrays not only the erraticism of Tourette’s, but the frustration and guilt and groveling that tend to follow, as though he were apologizing for his mere existence. Few people try very hard to accommodate or understand him (mostly, they have neither the education nor the emotional tools). This makes it all the more meaningful when characters like Dottie and Davidson’s boss Tommy (Peter Mullan) attempt to bridge the gap by accepting him at his word that his flailing or foul-mouthed ticcing is entirely out of his control.
On paper, these scenes might read like rote social drama. But the cast of “I Swear” brings such a commitment to realism that even the most melodramatic proclamations feel utterly real, awkward and funny. The sure-footedness of Jones’ filmmaking enables naturalistic simplicity to become a vessel for complexity. The recognizable trepidation, cowardice and confusion of every character we meet gives “I Swear” the power to change hearts and minds.
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