When we talk about biopics — and boy, in this industry, do we ever talk about biopics — we often lump them all together as one great, big, bulbous and slightly infected mass. Biopics are not all the same, or at least they shouldn’t be, because the human experience isn’t a formula. If anything, biopics should be resistant to formula, because the purpose of learning more about a person’s life is to explore their unique experiences and perspective. That way, the rest of us can expand our horizons and develop a greater sense of empathy, which is especially important for people who don’t already have it.
Kirk Jones’ “I Swear” is the antidote to fawning, publicity-driven biopics like Antoine Fuqua’s “Michael” and even nerdy, winking biopics like Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” (one of which I actually liked). There’s no iconic art to recreate, no image to point at as if to say, “I remember that.” There’s just a person, a person’s life and a great, fully-functional cinematic machine. And what is cinema if not, as Roger Ebert so wisely put it, “a machine that generates empathy.”
“I Swear” stars Robert Aramayo as John Davidson, who developed Tourette syndrome when he was 12 years old. It’s a condition that causes him to make uncontrollable movements and say uncontrollable, and usually highly inappropriate things. In 1983, John’s condition wasn’t well known, and he was repeatedly bullied by his peers, punished by his teachers and parents, and ostracized even from the family dinner table. John was, in their eyes, just a problem, and a problem they could neither understand nor solve.
Thirteen years later, John is on heavy medication and still living with his weary mother, Heather (Shirley Henderson). When he reunites with an old friend and finds out his mother, Dottie (Maxine Peake), is dying of cancer, he yells that she’s going to die of cancer, right to her face. Fortunately for John, Dottie was a nurse at a mental health institution and she understands his condition. She then invites him into her home, where he is weaned off of his meds and gradually develops a new, increasingly independent life.
Writer/director Kirk Jones has an impressive ability to depict John Davidson’s life as a difficult experience, for himself and everyone around him, without resorting to heavy melodrama, cheesy schmaltz or ham-fisted persecution. Neither John nor the people around him, not even Dottie, know everything there is to know about his condition and how he should function in a society that barely knows Tourette syndrome exists. This film finds fault, and grace, everywhere it looks.
When John is arrested for getting in a brawl, after one of his tics accidentally knocks a beer out of somebody’s hand, he’s shoved into a police car while uncontrollably confessing to crimes he never committed. It takes a lot of difficult communication to convey the specifics of his circumstances, and earn him a second chance from a very perplexed and offended judge. But John also screws up, as young people often do, and almost lands himself in prison for very real reasons. He’s not a martyr. He’s a guy with a difficult life who’s doing his best, which sometimes won’t be good enough.
While I’m not an expert on Tourette syndrome, and I would never pretend to be, Robert Aramayo’s performance seems convincing. As we spend more time with Aramayo’s performance the subtle distinctions between his verbal tics become clearer, as though we’re getting to know John Davidson personally and — as we would with anyone we knew well — pick up on the subtleties of his manner. Even great performances don’t always exude this much complexity.
Aramayo is flanked on all sides by impressive supporting performances, although they do sometimes fall into familiar, rigid roles. Peter Mullan plays Tommy’s boss, a kindly old man who only draws the line at Tommy accidentally injuring his dog. He’s John’s friend, cheerleader, and advocate, and that doesn’t leave much room for depth. Maxine Peake is phenomenal as Dottie, but also patient to the nth degree, a stark contrast from Shirley Henderson’s exasperated performance as John’s mother. Henderson shows the many shades of Heather Davidson in a film that tends to light the character from only one angle, at least until a climactic catharsis.
But while the rest of the ensemble doesn’t get to shine like Robert Aramayo, it’s his spotlight, and he earns it. As John grows from a troubled young boy, played by a remarkable Scott Ellis Watson, into a slightly less troubled young man, into a serious and respectable spokesman for people with Tourette syndrome, he paints a genuinely absorbing portrait. By the time the credits roll, you’ve been on a proper journey, and one many people may not otherwise have had the opportunity to walk.
There was a real risk that “I Swear” would fall into fluffy Care Bear clichés, but Kirk Jones is too smart a filmmaker for that. “I Swear” is the real deal, that rare biopic that doesn’t just tell a real human being’s story — or worse, give you the superficial, reassuring gist — but invites you into it. And while tears will be jerked and hearts will be warmed, it’s all done with such a deft hand that you may not even notice your emotions were manipulated at all. That’s how you do it, folks. That’s how you bio a pic.
