For a while there, it looked as though this Christmas advert season would be different. One by one, big brands have abandoned the weaponised sentimentality of the last decade – a period of time where most Christmas adverts were so busy trying to reduce you to a quivering puddle of snot they forgot to actually try to sell you anything – in favour of something a bit more upbeat.
This year, for instance, Argos has opted to show a rollerskating Chucky doll, while Marks & Spencer spent an inordinate amount of money letting Sophie Ellis-Bextor take a literal flamethrower to the entire concept of Christmas, purely to spite that thirsty headteacher who’s always in the tabloids.
This means the pressure is really on John Lewis this year. For years, John Lewis has led the pack when it comes to expensive tearjerkers. No other company has managed to exploit Twitter’s weakness for performative blubbing quite as well, whether it’s reminding viewers of the nostalgia of childhood Christmases, instructing them that their elderly neighbours are so lonely they may as well be on the moon or informing them that Elton John is probably going to die one day. But the adverts have become a little rote, a little less memorable. So what should it do? Carry on as normal, or try to be fun like all the other cool kids?
Reader, let me inform you that this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert features a scene where a giant sentient Venus flytrap forlornly paws at a frosted window, watching a family celebrate Christmas, heartbroken at the fact that they have abandoned it. So, you know, it’s probably business as usual then.
Actually, no, this is unfair. The whole sweep of the story is basically this: a boy buys a seed from a fraudulent shop owner who promises him that it will become a Christmas tree. He plants it, and realises that it is a Venus flytrap. The Venus flytrap tries to eat the boy’s dog, so his family throws it out into the garden. The Venus flytrap – removed from Christmas festivities, but still close enough that he can helplessly witness them, has a full-scale emotional breakdown. The family feel bad, and bring the Venus flytrap some presents. The Venus flytrap eats the presents, then regurgitates them back up and spits them at the family. The advert ends with an uneasy truce. I can’t remember the tagline, but I think it’s something like ‘Have a merry Christmas, but know that I will eat you in your sleep if you cross me again’.
So the heartbreak part of it is actually very small, a nod to John Lewis Christmas adverts gone by. The whole thing seems to be a huge mosaic of John Lewis Christmas ads gone by, in fact. There’s a kid eagerly awaiting Christmas (The Long Wait, 2011), a kid who makes an unsuitable friend (Monty the Penguin, 2014), an annoying creature who messes everything up for everyone before they eventually forgive him (Excitable Edgar, 2019) and a monstrous plant that comes to life purely to vomit presents over a horrified family (actually, no, this is the first time this one has happened).
I should probably point out that I have only watched this advert three times so far, so there’s a good chance I’ve missed some subliminal shot of something purely accidental that will drive the internet into such an incomprehensible state of fury that the company will be forced to apologise, like M&S did when some people thought it was burning the Palestinian flag. Maybe if you freeze-frame the final moments of the John Lewis advert, we’ll discover that the confetti spells out ‘We Love Vladimir Putin’ or something, I don’t know. There’s bound to be something.
On the whole, though, this is a very good effort. It’s nice to see a John Lewis Christmas advert that doesn’t deliberately grab you by the collar and demand that you cry. And it actually features things you can buy in John Lewis. At one point, the Venus flytrap vomits up a set of headphones you can buy in store. This is good! This is progress!
And, really, it isn’t too different from the controversial M&S ad. Both of them remind us that we shouldn’t be constrained by Christmas dogma. If we find something that works for us, whether it’s arson or the adoption of a terrifying 20ft-tall dog-eating plant that vomits headphones, then we are still capable of having a very merry Christmas. More like this in the future please.
