The John Lewis Christmas advert has been around for over a decade now. Oh, the things it has seen in that time. Two monarchs. A deadly global virus. About 15 or so prime ministers. In fact, it has been around for so long that it is now possible to divide the adverts into three clear groups. There are adverts about people being lonely at Christmas. There are, bizarrely, adverts about a succession of non-humans effing everything up for everyone. And then there are the message ones. It galls me to announce that this year’s John Lewis advert is a message one.
The advert, entitled The Beginner, sees a middle-aged man repeatedly try and fail to learn how to skateboard. He skates in parks. He skates under his desk at work. He uses his skateboard as an impromptu wheelbarrow for his Christmas tree. Again and again, he drives his body to the point of destruction. And for what? To look cool? To be more like his heroes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
No. Not at all. It’s because he is about to become a foster parent, and the child entering his care is also a keen skateboarder. He’s finding common ground with a stranger to make them feel comfortable. And then, the tagline: “Over 108,000 children in the UK are in the care system. We’re making a long-term commitment to support the futures of young people in care”. Which is a lovely sentiment, but in terms of catchiness it’s hardly “I feel like Chicken Tonight”, is it?
Now, the last time John Lewis tried a message advert, it stuck a lonely old man on the moon and the effect was so creepy people now sincerely believe it to have been a public service announcement on the dangers of looking elderly moon men directly in the eye. This year’s effort is much more simple. Its message is so clear that it cannot possibly be misunderstood: unless you are willing to deliberately break your arm for a child you have never met, you don’t deserve to become a foster parent.
Oh, I’m kidding. It’s actually a lovely little advert, albeit one told in a very un-John Lewis way. The main character is just a normal bloke and not, say, a terminally depressed snowman. He actually talks, in audible dialogue, rather than having to express his feelings through the medium of a slowed-down Ellie Goulding ballad. True, it isn’t going to make anyone rush out to do a wild trolley dash through their nearest branch of John Lewis. But, having seen their sales decline through the years, it doesn’t seem as if anything will.
What is John Lewissy, though – what is the most unapologetically John Lewissy thing in all of recorded human history – is the choice of song. As you are well aware, the John Lewis Christmas advert song is always a tortured, slowed-down piano ballad cover version of a traditionally upbeat song. This year, though, takes the biscuit.
This year’s song is a slowed-down ballad version of All The Small Things by Blink 182. Worse, it appears to be performed by an AI recreation of the last few Johnny Cash albums. The singer’s voice is deep and heavy and foreboding. It cracks with emotion, as if he has peered over the abyss and stared death directly in the face. It is a voice at once cowed and awestruck and resigned to an eternity of nothingness. And it is singing All The Small Things by Blink 182.
I cannot reconcile the song and the performance. It makes you think that the guy from the advert might have deliberately smashed his arm because the song made him realise the futility of existence. Honestly, I guarantee that people are going to have this song played at their funerals now, and their families will quietly sob the ‘Na na na’ bit under their breath as the curtains close around the coffin. This is the most ambivalently depressed I have ever been, John Lewis, and it’s all your fault. Merry Christmas.
