John Davidson is a great example of a self-assured Scottish boy in early adolescence. He does a paper round, keeps goal in football, eats chips most days for lunch, asks a girl out on his first day at secondary school. But then John starts to behave oddly. He begins to be bullied at school, at lunch, in the hallways, in the classroom, and in the office of the head teacher. His parents—as well as the school—believe that this development is explained not by a neurological illness but because of attention-seeking. This is the nineteen-eighties and Tourette’s Syndrome is a condition of which most Scottish people are entirely ignorant.
One of my greatest reading pleasures is the long-form profile, the kind that appears in Sunday supplements, periodicals, and weekly-published magazines. I especially admire profiles of people of whom nobody much has heard (my favourite is a nineteen-sixties profile of a homeless man). When well prepared, this kind of journalism requires hard work and diligence. “I Swear” (StudioCanal), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, is a long-form cinematic profile of John Davidson. I often read such profiles on medium-length train journeys, such as the one from Montrose (via Edinburgh) to Galashiels, the setting of “I Swear.” Galashiels is not likely to have been featured in that many films, nor profiled by many magazines.
A classmate in John’s English class, in which he has his first tic, a twitch of his neck, jokes to the teacher: “Someone’s electrified his chair, miss.” At supper, his mum joins in. “What’s all this nonsense,” she asks. “Don’t play the fool at the dinner table.” Later, she finds him in his room. “You’re just imagining it, John. Have a hot bath and an early night,” she suggests. John’s dad leaves—first to the pub and then for ever—and his mother never becomes sympathetic (eventually he moves in with Murray, one of his friends, whose mother, Dottie, played by Maxine Peake, ‘gets’ John and wants to help him). There is a wonderful moment where Dottie firmly says to John, “I need to talk to you about your language.” We hold our breath—yet another telling off? But no. “You never have to apologise for it in this house. We know you can’t help it. We know you don’t mean it.” Treated with dignity at last.
One of the consequences for John of his Tourette’s Syndrome is that he gets into brawls at school. An example of such a fight, in the playground, which is inside the quadrangle of the square-shaped school buildings, is captured by a stunning aerial shot. The camera drops from above into the square playground to capture the detail at teen-ager height. Punished yet again, John tries his hardest with the head—“I can’t help it. I can’t help it.” But he is wasting his breath. “You should be in an institution,” the head replies. “The real world will not be as sympathetic as we have been.” Eventually he does end up in that institution. He has tried to commit suicide.
The balance of the film is set thirteen years later and concerns adult John, now with a medical diagnosis. Should he be medicated or not? His mum think so; Dottie thinks not. Coming off meds reduces some of the restrictions of his life but increases the tics—which mostly take the form of involuntary neck and head spasms, swearing, spitting and having no pause between the first thought that comes to him and what comes out of his mouth (which, naturally enough, has consequences).
A complete picture of John forms in the audience by eavesdropping upon cherry-picked events. By the end of the two hours we spend at the Playhouse, we feel that we really know him. As well as the English class and the hospital as a teen-ager, we are taken to witness John’s first antics in a night-club, first flat, first house party, first job interview, first experience of being met by a couple of heavies wielding crowbars under a railway bridge. It is a highly accomplished masterclass in storytelling.
John appears in every scene; much depends on the two actors who play him. The teen-ager is played by Scott Ellis Watson whose first few tics are as emotionally wrought as anything I have seen this year. The audience, of course, knows the diagnosis. But this doesn’t stop us being appalled and ashamed by how the state-school system fails poor Scottish teen-agers who need a doctor not a whip hand. Later, Robert Aramayo plays the adult John with a delightful balance of acceptance and humour. “What can I do? What will they let me do,” he asks. But then, he meets someone who doesn’t throw him onto the scrap heap and offers him a job. Like his boss (Tommy, played by Peter Mullan) we cannot believe that the sheriff at the court—John has been accused of grievous bodily harm (at that nightclub)—is so out of touch. Mr Aramayo has developed the character of John with hard work and diligence. Take the first time he meets Dottie: asked by Murray to join his family for spaghetti bolognaise, his nervous demeanour just before he rings the doorbell shows the audience clearly how anguished he is; and how terrified of screwing up. It’s fabulous.
Just like a great sauce in a recipe, the serious message—of ignorance of society and salvation in community—is carefully balanced by a lightness of touch in filmmaking and laddishness in John, especially when with Murray, confidently played by Francesco Piacentini-Smith. On the evening I attended, there were long, genuine bursts of laughter; at the line, “I’ve got two aces,” say, during his first game of blackjack; or, “I’ve got drugs under my jumper,” during his arrest for suspected drug dealing.
Later, Dottie convinces a sceptical John that he could become a leader for other people with his condition—starting with a conversation with a girl in her parents’ car. “You’re the first person I’ve met with Tourette’s,” the girl says. “You understand more than the specialists do. You’re good at this.” He replies, quick as a flash, “Wait ‘til your dad sees my bill!”
Adam Poole
14 October 2025
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
