Disappointed that a department store chain didn’t make you cry this year? Take a good look at yourself
November 14, 2024 1:58 pm(Updated 2:22 pm)
I spent two minutes of this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert gearing up for the plot twist in which one of the two central sisters turns out to be dead. Instead, it panned out onto the most impersonal scene imaginable: Oxford Street.
Contrary to what I have been conditioned to believe, there were no tears, no devastating cover song, not even a storyline I found particularly easy to follow, as a woman ransacked through her memories with her sister to try and decide on the perfect prezzie. Do I feel let down because I have not been manipulated into contemplating my morals, my values, my loved ones, those less fortunate than me or the cruelty of the passage of time? No. It’s an advert.
It’s fine: nothing on last year’s absurd but genius Venus flytrap spitting out headphones and slippers and Lego at a bemused family standing on the lawn, and the emotional stakes don’t come close to the previous year’s, in which a man learned to skateboard in a bid to bond with his foster child.
Each year we are told these little stories reflect Britain and its mood – the impact of the pandemic, for example, or the cost of living crisis – we rush to identify the annual mystery singer. But this time the voice is Richard Ashcroft’s, the song’s been out since 1998, and the only big takeaway is that it’s about shopping. Guess what? It always has been.
Based on 100 per cent of previous data, on Christmas Eve when everyone sensible is heading to Mass or peeling potatoes, I’ll be schlepping round the John Lewis at Leicester Highcross praying to Monty the Penguin (2014), Buster the Boxer (2016) or Moz the Monster (2017) that there’ll still be an Emma Bridgewater holly leaf jug left on the shelf. There are indeed times when I do not know what I’d do without John Lewis.
But it should be a national embarrassment that we’ve tricked ourselves into believing the unveiling of this campaign to get us to spend more money is a great Christmas tradition. Has everyone forgotten it only really began in earnest in 2011?
The first advert in the modern John Lewis era was in 2007 (“Shadows”, directed by Michael Gracey who would later direct the appalling musical The Greatest Showman). The mini-movies as we know them now began in 2010 with “A Tribute to Givers”, with Ellie Goulding doing a cover of Elton John’s “Your Song”. But the first to really set the blueprint for what we have accepted is a national institution (unknown artist, cute lead character, compulsory crying) was the following year’s “The Long Wait”, with a Slow Moving Millie cover of The Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”.
I’ve just watched it again and, yes, I’m sobbing: a little boy in a house just like the one I grew up in is exploding with impatience as he opens his advent calendar all month until on Christmas morning he creeps toward his parents’ bedroom and the twist is: he couldn’t wait to give a present, not get one. Brilliant. Obviously, it’s brilliant. Haven’t you seen Mad Men?
Ever since “The Long Wait” the concept of the “Christmas present” has been interpreted in ever more abstract ways, with ever more gymnastic approaches to the idea that one gift can communicate everything we feel about friendship, family, love, kindness and charity while cleverly manoeuvring around the truth that any present that manages to be anywhere near that thoughtful is not one you’re going to find in a branch of John Lewis. Still, we have lapped it up, and absorbed, too, the idea that John Lewis can kick off the festive season with a purge of emotion during the break of I’m a Celebrity. And every other department store, supermarket, and pharmacy chain follows suit.
This year’s advert, “The Gifting Hour”, has broken the spell. No, it doesn’t feel special, magical, moving, or like its director is nurturing an Oscar dream, but in focusing on the reality of why John Lewis exists in the first place its message is actually the most timeless truth of all: Christmas shopping is a massive pain in the arse.