Rejected Concepts For The John Lewis Christmas Advert
I haven't been asked to write the John Lewis Christmas advert yet, but that hasn't stopped me.
I haven't been asked to write the John Lewis Christmas advert yet, but that hasn't stopped me.
THE CONVICT sits behind bulletproof glass, holding a telephone. His DAUGHTER, 6, sits across from him with a stern-faced MINDER. There’s been a cursory attempt to decorate the room in a festive manner.
THE WARDEN taps his watch. The Convict puts his hand up to the glass, and his Daughter responds in kind. The Minder scowls.
The Minder slams the Daughter’s phone down and whisks her away, mouthing the word “scum” as he does so. The Convict helplessly watches on as his daughter leaves, looking equally dismayed.
The Convict wakes and impatiently runs to the window of his cell and looks out behind bars. He does this every morning until the yard is covered in a thick blanket of fresh snow. It’s Christmas. He’s excited.
The Convict waits at his booth, holding his hand to the glass, but his daughter never turns up.
The Convict whiles away the hours behind bars, bouncing a ball against the wall of his cell, whittling a stick, administering beatings in the yard, getting contraband smuggled into the prison via the bogs, drawing notches of days in a big tally on his wall. He repeats his eager waiting-for-Christmas morning routine, but his daughter fails to show each year. He gets visibly older as the montage progresses.
The Convict wakes. He’s a frail old man now. He goes to his window. It’s Christmas. He sighs. The excitement has drained out of him.
The Convict shuffles to the booth. His daughter, now an adult is waiting, her hand pressed against the glass. The Convict gasps and meets hers. He goes to speak but she puts her finger to her lips. To his confusion, she gets up silently and heads to the loos.
She comes back and they resume ‘touching’ hands through the glass, but the Warden taps his watch and she is ushered her out. He watches her go, a bemused expression on his face. She smiles and nods at him as she leaves.
The Convict is doing his usual rounds sifting around in the bogs, fishing out bags of various narcotics and nail files, when he catches something unusual. It’s a neatly wrapped present, addressed to him.
He tears it open. It’s a lovely leather belt! (Special edition available at John Lewis.) He stares at it for a second, then slowly looks up at the prison window. A Bethlehem-esque nativity star sparkles between the inviting bars. He smiles.
The lovely leather belt is really tying the Convict’s Santa outfit together as he hands out John Lewis gifts to the other inmates.
GRANDDAD and GRANDMA bustle about the kitchen, frantically juggling all parts of the Christmas dinner. The rest of their family runs amok through their house, with different players — children, grandchildren, cousins — rushing in and out of the kitchen.
The stressed grandparents catch a glance amidst the chaos. They are stood under mistletoe. They smile at each other and GRANDDAD takes a mince pie off a tray and holds it between them. They both slowly lean in and take a bite of each half, slowly munching their way closer together, Lady and the Tramp style.
Two tapeworm larvae are snuggling atop the cosy surface of a mince pie. TREV is a male and TINA is a female (her face has bigger eyelashes or something.) Suddenly teeth appear from either side, destroying the world around them with each bite. They both go to clasp each other in panic, but the two pairs of teeth separate the plains of the pie.
The grandparents complete their kiss and swallow their respective pies.
Trev swirls inside Granddad’s mouth. He flails, trying to pull himself out, but he can’t resist the flow. He is sucked into Granddad’s gullet, watching on desperately as his beloved Tina disappears from sight.
Trev suddenly meets resistance. He’s grown, doubling in length without realising. His tail has caught around some blood clot. After much struggle, he yanks himself free. He breathes heavily and pulls a forlorn face. He looks down at a locket on his neck. It’s Tina. He steels himself, then hurls himself further inside the host with reckless abandon.
A time-lapse sequence begins and Trev battles the elements. He endures the blistering winds of the lungs, the searing heat of the heart, and a blizzard in the pancreas for some reason. He reaches the intestine and finds himself expanding faster than he can move. Still, he drags his carcass forward and soldiers on.
Finally, the exhaustion overcomes him and he collapses.
A defeated Trev is dozing on the floor. He’s been hitting the bottle hard since giving up on freedom and looks worse for ware. A faint rumble wakes him. He turns towards the noise confused. It becomes louder and louder. Food and debris piles towards him and he is caught up in the tide.
A small chink of light expands as Trev hurtles towards it, until it engulfs everything in brilliant, blinding white.
The family are chowing down on Christmas lunch, practically finished. Importantly, the table and furniture is all from John Lewis.
Granddad and Grandma are sat next to each other in the middle of the table, taking their last bite of their shared mince pie. They swallow.
Trev looks around himself, bleary eyed. He is protruding from Granddad’s anus. His vision slowly returns and out of the haze, Tina comes into focus. She is protruding from Grandma’s anus.
The two tapeworms lean in and share a kiss — the camera tracks out, revealing the two host humans are doing the same.
DAUGHTER and SON, both around 3, lay out mince pies, carrots and a glass of sherry by a fireplace adorned with tinsel, fairylights and tinsel. MUM ruffles their hair, kisses them on the head and sends them up to bed.
DAD is standing at the door. They embrace lovingly. He’s half dressed in a Santa costume and carrying armful of presents. She playfully fixes his Santa hat atop his head and he goes to fill the stockings with presents. Daughter and Son watch wild-eyed and opened mouthed through the banisters. Santa!
Dad tucks into the mince pie, polishes off the carrot and goes to drink the sherry. Mum raises her eyebrow, but he gives her look which says “it’s Christmas!” and she smiles a “go-on-then!” smile. He necks it in one. They kiss under the mistletoe.
We see this tradition play out over various years, with Mum becoming increasingly disapproving of the ever-larger glasses of sherry Dad necks down the end of each job. His paunch grows and his demeanour becomes more dishevelled every time. After about the fifth year, Mum pulls away from the kiss.
Mum is at the wheel of the family car, while Dad stands beside it, dopily holding a box of his belongings and wearing his now scruffy as hell Santa outfit. He goes to open the door handle, but Mum stops him. She gives him a final sympathetic look and drives him. Daughter and Son look out from behind Mum, waving their old man goodbye.
A forlorn Dad trudges through the bustling streets. Every time he limply raises his hangdog head, he sees happy families excited to be with one another and revelling in the Christmas spirit. He sees a father huddled with two children remarkably similar to his own. Just about keeping himself together, he makes to get off the street.
Dad is at the tills, paying for a bunch of carrots and a box of mince pies. His glance darts instinctively to the booze section. No. Not tonight. He pays and leaves.
Dad’s flat is markedly more run-down and grotty than the old family home. It has a fireplace, but the magic is gone. Stoically, he sticks to tradition, laying out the mince pies and carrots, sneaking out of the room and then back in again to scoff them all.
It’s not the same. He crumples in a heap and bursts into tears. Then, a noise. Sounds like someone scrounging around. A burglar perhaps? He instinctively grabs the closest thing he could use as a weapon.
It’s Santa. The actual, real Santa. Santa puts his arm around Dad. Santa’s holding a 12 pack of Tennents Super and an iPad (special edition available at John Lewis.) Dad wipes the tear from his eyes and smiles.
They proceed to get absolutely smashed together and Skype the Daughter and Son. The kids pick up.
The kids scream, Santa and Dad clink each other’s cans together.
A swarm of drones fills the air like locusts. Terrified civilians flee the surround explosions, but the constant threat of death stalks their every turn. ADORABLE WARCHILD, a young boy with gumdrop eyes and rosy cheeks, clutches a battered copy of his favourite book to his chest. He’s tearing through the debris, trying to escape the omnipresent danger. He knows no life beyond conflict, which you can see in the dread evident in his otherwise adorable gumdrop eyes.
CUTE DRONE hesitates for a second, hovering in one spot as the other drone soldiers rush past it, raining a hail of death on the poor souls below. It stands apart from the other drones by looking markedly less mean. It has a blinking eye thing and is wearing a scarf. Still, it has a job to do, so rallies itself and returns to the fray.
Panting frantically, Adorable Warchild weaves this way and that, ducking air strikes and vaulting landmines, bobbing in and out of the rubble and ruins of the buildings that once formed his hometown. Pleading, maimed casualties cry out for aid, fully aware no rescue will ever come but not knowing how else to respond in their final moments. Adorable Warchild sees the desperation on their faces but cannot stop. He grips his book tightly.
Meanwhile, Cute Drone scans the scurrying ant-like people below. It thinks it sees its target and speeds towards it, but as it gets closer, it sees it’s just a woman cradling her baby and sobbing. Cute Drone shakes its head solemnly. Not right. It glimpses something else, but it’s just another false flag, an old man waving a white hankie from the wreckage of a bombed out car. Things keep promisingly catching its attention but turning into dead ends. It zips across the sky in staccato stops and turns, trying to avoid crashing into its drone compatriots and becoming increasingly overwhelmed, like a child lost in a supermarket.
Adorable Warchild comes to a clearing. Silence. Is he safe? Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon him? Will the Earth open under him? He doesn't know. But he seems safe, for now. His breathing becomes more controlled. He goes to comfort himself by opening his lovingly illustrated children’s book (a special edition to be made available at John Lewis) to the first page.
Cute Drone zips towards him. Adorable Warchild shrieks and trips over, dropping his beloved book in a puddle. He tears it out, but it’s too late. It’s gone. A tear rolls from his eye and down his cheek.
The Cute Drone is hovering over him. Adorable Warchild doesn’t care. He’s ready for death now. Only… the Cute Drone appears to be sympathetic. It does a cute inquisitive blink and nudges him gently. It finally stirs him from despondency to mild irritance. What does it want? He looks up and the Cute Drone drops a lovingly wrapped card in his lap.
Curious, Adorable Warchild opens it slowly. It’s a glowing John Lewis book token for £10! Adorable Warchild looks up smiling as the Cute Drone speeds off into the starry night sky.
The family are gathered in the ideal middle-class living room. It has a Victorian sophistication meets tasteful modernist Scandi-chic feel and is filled with John Lewis furniture. The room is bedecked in Christmas decorations and a fire crackles softly in the background.
MUM is sat on the sofa enjoying a warm embrace with her twin children TIMMY and SARAH. The children are craning to see what DAD is doing behind an obscenely tall Christmas tree. He appears at last, wielding an offensively large present and hands it to Sarah.
She rips it open. It’s an exact replica dolls house of the Saint Petersberg Winter Palace. She squeals and Timmy shoots her a scowl, which evaporates when he sees Dad returning with an equally large box.
He opens it — it’s the fastest bicycle in the world. He claps his hands together and immediately starts riding it around the living room. The children stop playing for a second and rush over to Dad, hugging his legs.
Dad turns to Mum, who is admiring him adoringly.
He produces a tiny delicately wrapped box from his pocket. He stares into her eyes. A smile gently eases across her pristine lips. Dad’s eyes glaze over.
Dad is a seventeen year old, stood in an ill-fitting baby blue suit, looking around himself. He spies Mum for the first time. They lock eyes.
Dad shuffles over and fumbles in his pocket. He pulls out a flower and offers it to her. She bows her head and slowly allows him to place it in her hair.
She raises her head — her face shares the expression we saw in the living room. They lean in and share their first kiss.
The couple are at the altar. Dad places the ring on Mom’s finger, then pulls out another flower and fixes it in her hair. She smiles that same smile and they kiss again. They church erupts in cheer.
Mum and Dad are frolicking in the sea on their honeymoon. They fall down on the shoreline. Their eyes meet. They stop giggling and stare into each other’s dilating pupils. Dad pulls out another flower, places it in her hair. She smiles and bites her lip. They lean in to kiss.
Mum lets out a sigh of relief, exhausted. Dad hands the twins over and she hugs them tightly. The parents’ eyes meet again, he pulls another flower out of his scrubs, she smiles and they kiss.
It’s a beautiful day and the family have just bought their first house. Dad opens the door and the children rush inside the model home. Mom places her arm around him and the parents survey their new home. They lock eyes, he pulls out a flower, smile, kiss.
om tucks the children into bed and they immediately fall asleep. Mom looks tired, and Dad appears behind her and places a comforting hand on her shoulder. She turns around. Flower. Smile. Kiss.
We're back in the present day now. Dad opens the box for mum. It’s that same flower. He leans in for a kiss.
DEREK, Mom’s new husband, enters through the door.
Dad grabs Derek by his lapels and hurls him through the window. During his flight, Derek’s leg becomes ensnared in one of the cables for the fairy lights. which yanks it out of the wall. This causes a spark which sets the tree, and soon the whole room, alight.
Dad looks on in horror. The scene suddenly morphs around him. He is not in the living room of his dream house, but in his dank shed. He has faithfully recreated this tableau of his former family with John Lewis products.
He collects up the children — mere doll toys with printed A4 pictures crudely sellotaped to their faces — and then turns his attention to Mum. She is a terrifying Frankenstein-esque effigy, made of fabric, wires and utensils.
He carefully balances her head — an intricate mesh of cutlery — back atop the body. He places the flower in her egg whisk hair and kisses her.
He leans back and smiles. His face is bleeding from the kiss.
Derek’s singed voodoo doll body hangs out of the still burning shed.
BILLY, a very cute but slightly pathetic looking boy is sat in the corner of the room with his head bowed. His MUM is meeting with the HEADTEACHER.
Mum turns to look at Billy, who has recoiled within his puffa jacket. She sighs sympathetically.
Billy bounds up to a group of children, clutching a football.
The other children form a circle and begin spitting on him in unison. He trudges away, dragging his faded hand-me-down Alan Shearer lunchbox along the ground behind him.
Mum looks on from across the playground. She sighs and shakes her head.
A junior team receives a team-talk from their MANAGER. He is of typical PE-teacher stocky build and goes through each member of the squad, giving them encouragement until he gets to an excited looking Billy.
The whole team stares at him until Billy trudges away. From across the pitch, where the parents are standing, Mum looks on and sighs.
Billy is kicking a football against the wall of his house in torrential rain. He valiantly rushes and harries, until he kicks the ball at such an angle it rebounds off some brickwork, hits him in the face and knocks him out. He lies on the concrete, bleeding from his forehead.
From inside the house, Mum pauses washing up, looks at his lifeless body and sighs.
It’s Christmas day. Billy comes downstairs, his head bowed in shame. Mum places a hand on his shoulder. He raises his head, his eyes are red from crying.
She produces a John Lewis-wrapped gift from behind her back. It’s a games console and a copy of FIFA. Billy stares at them for a while, then looks up hopefully. Mum smiles.
Each Christmas, Billy bounds down the stairs and Mom hands him a new game. The games become increasingly violent in content each year, while Billy becomes progressively more hideous and disfigured with age, but remains ceaselessly happy.
We hear gunshots and the screams of children from inside the building.
Mum polishing off her Christmas dinner and watching television.
Billy is on the news, being lead away after having been sentenced. The words of the headteacher — “Your son will leave no mark on this world, I advise you to seriously consider giving up on him Miss Harris, if you haven’t already.” — echo in her mind.
Just before he gets lead away, Billy turns and gives one last look down the camera and smiles. Mum beams back, chuffed. A small tear of happiness appears in the corner of her eye, which she wipes away with a John Lewis handkerchief.