I Swear is a biographical drama based on Scottish campaigner John Davidson’s experience of Tourette’s syndrome.
Spanning his teenage years to the present, it follows the first tics and their social fallout. It traces how Tourette’s syndrome – and the relationships and institutions around it – shape a life over decades.
Swearing forms part of Davidson’s experience — the film opens with an expletive-laden outburst at his MBE ceremony. But I Swear is careful to stress that coprolalia (involuntary swearing) affects only a small minority of people with Tourette’s. In doing so, it moves decisively beyond the sensationalising of symptoms that so often dominates media representation.
