“I Swear” tests our compassion

It’s remarkably unfortunate that the way most Americans learned about “I Swear,” Kirk Jones’ biographical drama about Tourette syndrome advocate John Davidson, was by the exact kind of unintentional public gaffe the film exists to assuage. While Tourette syndrome has many complex symptoms, “I Swear” focuses largely on coprolalia, a symptom affecting approximately 10% of individuals with Tourette’s and manifests in the involuntary use of obscene language. Throughout the film, Davidson (played with exceptional depth by Robert Aramayo) wrestles with the public’s misunderstanding of his condition, enduring the voluntary violence doled out as a result of his involuntary tics. Though the film can be both overly didactic and schmaltzy, it earnestly attempts to dredge up compassion in the viewer, helping them to understand the nuances of Tourette syndrome as a way of championing both accessibility and acceptance.

But earlier this year, Davidson inadvertently found himself and his condition at the center of a media firestorm. While Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan presented an award during February’s BAFTA ceremony, Davidson shouted the N-word, which was picked up by the microphones placed throughout the auditorium. According to reports, Warner Bros. — which distributed Jordan and Lindo’s smash hit, “Sinners” — and BAFTA called for the racial slur to be scrubbed from the broadcast, which aired pre-recorded on a two-hour delay. Still, the ceremony aired without the slur being censored, allowing viewers not only to hear the word but also to witness Jordan and Lindo’s visibly wearied frustration.

In the hours, days and weeks that followed, reactions flew across the digital battlefield, aiming so fiercely for one side or the other that few could examine the nuance in the middle without being caught in the crossfire. Those hurt by hearing the word and seeing the clip proliferated online by racist trolls were broadly labeled as ableists for trying to express how, regardless of intent, the word can still cause an instinctual, sharp pain and embolden further use when broadcast to millions. Others were quick to jump in and defend Davidson from actual ableism — statements that Davidson should’ve never been allowed at the show, or in public — without fully acknowledging that the incident hurt others, too.

As my colleague Melanie McFarland pointed out in March, it was the BBC — a network notorious for its carelessness when it comes to anti-Black racism — that was most culpable in this situation. Davidson told Variety that he shouted other obscene language during the show that was all censored, and that he felt a “wave of shame” after the incident, removing himself from the ceremony. But it’s the BBC’s negligence that highlights both the importance of “I Swear” and its innate shortcomings. Jones’ film is a palatable, pleasing story of tenacity in the face of marginalization. It’s also a film caught up in idealism, presenting a this-or-that way to approach situations like the one Davidson found himself embroiled in earlier this year. By simply telling us that compassion is possible without depicting the subtleties of human growth, “I Swear” functions more like an educational drama than a portrait of how to make real-life change.

And that’s not a bad thing, at least not necessarily. There are so few depictions of Tourette syndrome in the media as it is, and even fewer that accurately render the potentially debilitating complications of coprolalia. Growing up with a sibling who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and witnessing the dissonance between her condition and the unrealistic portrayals in the media — or worse, the claims of being “soooo OCD” for something like carrying hand sanitizer — drilled into my head from a young age that education about these types of disorders is crucial. There is so much that the public doesn’t know, and even more that can be contorted by disinformation and colloquial slang, making these important subjects the butt of the joke. When Davidson was first introduced to U.K. audiences in the 1988 TV documentary, “John’s Not Mad,” the film was as much of an inspiration story as it was a cause for mass mockery. Despite the filmmakers’ earnest intentions, the nature of Davidson’s condition, combined with the fact that he was only 15 at the time and Tourette’s was so unexplored in the media, meant that Davidson was an easy target.

In many ways, a narrative film like “I Swear” bridges the gap between a viewer’s head and their heart more easily than a 30-minute television documentary. By identifying a start and tentative end point in Davidson’s story, along with a specific series of true events to pass through on the way to the finish line, Jones constructs his film around the most critical aspects of Davidson’s life — the ones audiences need to see. There are triumphant highs and rock-bottom lows. Less frequent are the moments in the middle; good days with little commotion, ones that warrant personal reflection but don’t have the same emotional resonance in a relatively standard biopic like this one. To keep the audience’s interest and to plainly communicate the unique difficulties of living with Tourette syndrome, “I Swear” is all but forced to make every scene eventful. Maximize the heartening and heartrending, and you’ll stand to maximize the viewer’s compassion, too.

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Some might find that manipulative, but in the case of “I Swear,” any minor bit of cinematic sap is warranted. This is a film that serves a purpose, and Jones’ amiable writing and Aramayo’s engaging performance dredge up just enough sentimentality while keeping the movie from seeming overly instructive. That does not mean, though, that one won’t come away from “I Swear” with the distinct impression that they’ve been watching an educational film meant for high school classrooms, instead of a film that can stand on its own among its peers at the multiplex. Such is the nature of a movie like this, but every viewer’s mileage with the pedagogical writing will vary.

The film charts a course through Davidson’s life from the start of his tics as a teenager up until he was presented an award by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019, another venue where he swore. Naturally, this is the film’s opening scene, intended to communicate that managing Tourette’s is a lifelong endeavor, but that even the stuffiest, most proper royal figurehead can meet the condition with patience and understanding.

(Graeme Hunter/Sony Pictures Classics) Robert Aramayo as John Davidson and Maxine Peake as Dottie Achenbach in “I Swear”

As he moves through Davidson’s life, Jones gradually heightens Davidson’s visible exhaustion, trying to manage a condition that no one in his orbit understands. His mother forces him to eat dinner away from the family table to avoid his tics, and his father becomes so disgruntled that he leaves their home and never returns. When a tic causes him to get in a fight with a fellow student, the school headmaster wraps young John (Scott Ellis Watson) on the hand, warning him, “The real world outside this school will not be as sympathetic as we have.” It’s on the nose, sure, but it’s a fitting way to telegraph that Davidson was born into a world where accessibility isn’t treated as a priority, thrust into a life built on a series of apologies.

But there’s a limit to how many similar instances, all with the same structure, the film can retrace before it gives way to monotony. Almost every scene finds John in an environment where his tics have the potential to offend someone, and the movie’s narrative stakes hinge on the viewer anticipating something bad might happen to him because of those tics. When John’s not met with immediate violence, we celebrate. When he is, we shudder and wonder how the world could be so cruel. But there’s little interiority between these two reactions, no sense of what John himself is thinking at any moment. The audience will root for him, yes, but they won’t have any understanding of who Davidson is as a person. Ironically, the film devotes so much attention to the world’s reaction to Davidson’s coprolalia that there’s scant space left over to examine its actual subject beyond correcting the ways the world sees him.

Everyone John meets in “I Swear” is either aghast by his tics or accepts them without struggle. There’s no depiction of someone’s initial surprise or unease — at least more than a raised eyebrow — that gives way to understanding with a bit more time or knowledge. Despite how much the film’s script emphasizes the importance of education, the narrative itself portrays only a right way and wrong way to react.

It’s not unreasonable to think that some viewers may see that binary depiction and use it as an incentive to villainize others in sensitive situations like the one that occurred at the BAFTAs, even if their intentions are good. Like the BAFTAs incident, “I Swear” misses the chance to focus on the middle ground between one side’s righteous finger-wagging and the other’s initial, warranted hurt from hearing a slur that the BBC should’ve taken care to excise — the place where education actually happens.

In that way, “I Swear” is more of a graceful introduction to the complicated realities of living with Tourette’s than a practical guide on how to best educate others in a world unfit to meet the needs of someone with the condition. The film outright states its thesis in the final act, when John admits, “I don’t think Tourette’s is the problem. I think the problem is we don’t know enough about Tourette’s.” Unambiguous, but true. The BAFTAs were only a reminder of how far society has yet to go, and how much work has to be done in combating both ableism and racism in a culture that will jump to both at any chance they get. “I Swear” is a didactic starting point, and it may even inspire overcorrection when it comes to educating others, but its heart is in the right place. These days, that’s got to count for something.