Robert Aramayo deservedly won both the Best Actor in a Leading Role and Rising Star BAFTAs for his performance in this 2025 biopic of John Davidson, a Scotsman with severe Tourette syndrome. But the fact that the film also won the Best Casting BAFTA for Lauren Evens highlights the quality elsewhere in a film that features the considerable acting talents of Maxine Peake, Peter Mullan and Shirley Henderson.

This is an unashamed British film that combines the feelgood (a triumph over the odds), the sentimental (he gets to meet the late Queen), and the gritty (social realism is the dominant style). The success of the film lies in the balance it achieves between the inescapable comedy of Davidson’s condition and the real tragedy of his suffering in a society that is thoughtless at best and callous at worst.

At the heart of the film is a contrast between the failings of his own parents to understand his condition, a tension that contributes to the breakup of their marriage, and the unconditional support he receives from his proxy parents, Maxine Peake as the generous mother of a schoolfriend and Peter Mullan as the caretaker who takes him under his wing. But perhaps the best performance, because the most unsympathetic, is Shirley Henderson’s as John’s tired and emotionally distant mother.

“It transcends a study of Tourette’s and makes you think how much your own experience overlaps with it; after all, he’s doing what we’ve all dreamt of doing – yelling out an obscenity!” Susannah Clapp, The Observer on BBC Front Row

“Kirk Jones’ terrifically warm, generous film about real-life Tourette’s activist John Davidson raises relevant questions about the overdiagnosis debate surrounding conditions such as ADHD and autism, as well as the larger tonal point of how, when and whether to laugh at John or with him.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian