An emotional Christmas film by a small business has left viewers in tears and saying it's better than John Lewis. The clip, which has been viewed over 4m times online in less than 24 hours, was created by Yorkshire video company Sam Teale Productions and according to viewers is "the best and most true" Christmas advert they've ever seen.
Each year the company sets out to create their 'alternative John Lewis' advert and this year's efforts are especially poignant. The moving film follows a grieving father who is dealing with Christmas alone with his young son and struggling with the pressures of the cost of bills and the festive period.
In one clip the young boy says "Santa's poorly this year" when asked what he wants for christmas, while in another his dad is seen sitting at home in the dark in his winter coat and cooking a meal for his son and not himself.
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The film centers around the message that "Christmas is made and not bought" as the dad remembers his childhood memories of wooden toys and makes a wooden cart for his son for Christmas so he doesn't go without. In an emotional final scene, both visit their late mother and wife's grave in the cart.
The video was posted on the business' Facebook page on December 1, and less than a day later has been viewed millions of times with tens of thousands of comments. Video producer Sam, 20, said the line was inspired by a story he was told by his friend who works as a dentist last year.
Sam told YorkshireLive: “I can’t believe it, people have been sharing the video and we’re getting thousands of likes a minute. I can’t believe how well it’s been received. We knew during production that it was a special idea but I didn’t think that so many people would resonate with it but people have.
“We do a Christmas advert every year inspired by events of the year. We had a meeting we thought about doing it about the Queen but we started thinking about the cost of living and how it’s going to get worse coming up to Christmas.
“We wanted to focus on real stories of real people. We had four actors and everything including the environment is all real. We wanted to tell a real story and I think it's gone down brilliantly from an emotional point of view.”
And with the festive period expected to be a difficult one for a lot of families due to the rising cost of living, it seems as though the advert has really resonated with people. One person commented: "The best and most true Christmas advert I’ve seen so far, in these hard times we’re all going through, we maybe all struggle at some point...nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody should ever feel alone"
And another said: "Forget John Lewis, Tesco, whoever. This is the Christmas advert of the year this year. Absolutely beautiful, I’m sobbing! Well done to everyone involved."
You can watch the film by Sam Teale Productions here.
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