I am so the target audience

I’ve found my best movie of the year so far, and it’s only 1 minute 30 seconds long and I can watch it on YouTube.

I don’t care that it’s sentimental, I don’t care that it’s a the simplest of simple stories, or that it’s a reworking of ideas often used before. I don’t even care that it’s an advert. It made me cry and I want to watch it again.  When I watch it again I cry some more.

I know I’m not alone. It’s aimed at women, mothers really, and that’s me.

I know I’m being taken for a ride, I know I’m being sold an image of a life that isn’t real, so what? I’m buying!

It seems to sum up that John Lewis idea of quality in detail, great music, brilliantly made, a teensy bit safe, but that just makes it all the more homely. I’ve said enough, if you want to watch it’s here:

I noticed there was a discussion about the advert on Mumsnet. I love Mumsnet almost as much as John Lewis. The comments sum up my thoughts, I admire this advert because I choose to go with my heart not my head. I have sympathy for those who fight it’s fat dose of sentimentality, I understand that the hero is a safe middle class woman with kids, I see the point that 90 seconds is not enough to show a real or messy life. As a middle class woman at home with kids I thank John Lewis for showing this life as heroic, and personally I don’t need to see the directors cut with binge drinking and rows.

Here’s my favourite Mumsnet comments:

Arkala : Am I being unreasonable to cry at the new John Lewis ad? Probably I am. But I LOVE that song and found the ad very moving, and I love John Lewis too, so was very pleased it wasn’t for tampax or something else.

purits : Sorry, this advert does nothing for me. Female = someone’s daughter, someone’s girlfriend, someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s grandmother. Inbetween times, she does some homemaking. She has no career and no interests outside of the home and family.

StrictlyKatty : How is it sexist?! She comes home from work and spends time with her children… seems like a pretty balanced life to me!

BitOfFun : I keep waiting for her to drop dead in the field.

APassionateWoman : I can’t believe people are moved by this contrived advertiser’s GUFF. Are you on your period, or what?

Francagoestohollywood : Oh look, grandparents providing childcare !!!

zapostrophe : It made me cry. But I am pregnant.

CrankyTwanky : I had a weeny weep, but only coz the girl at the desk looks just like DD, and I am bfing with cracked niples & thrush atm, so crying anyway.

EggyAllenPoe : I wouldn’t want to have a cry to a song called “Ours Is a Mutually Fulfilling and Respectful Relationship and He Always Remembers To Take The Bin Out.” Would anyone?

MuffinToptheMule : I nearly cried when it showed the woman opening the fridge door and when she closed it she was pregnant. I can’t wait for that. The pregnancy that is, I’m always opening the fridge door already.

bobbiewickham : The only problem I have with it is that for years the lyrics made me believe you couldn’t go to jail if you had a degree [thick emoticon]

bobbiewickham : She looks like a total bloody martyr, tbh. And someone whom someone told once that she suited red, and she’s never had the balls to try another colour. I’d hate her if I knew her. I bet she’s never woken up on the sofa fully dressed still pissed from the night before.

everythingiseverything : I got a bit teary. Thing is, my life looks a lot like that bunting-cupcakery from the outside, but here on the inside it’s pretty shit.

MavisGrind : Yesterday I admitted in the other thread about this that I was a bit teary. Today I realise that all it boils down to the fact that I apparentlty covert old lady stylish hairstyles.

KittyBigglesworth : Ghastly advert, deliberately trying to yank on the Mumsy old heart strings. What a dreary, bloody life.

chandellina : I had some sort of hormonal/acohol-induced breakdown after seeing this ad the other night. Well done John Lewis – they have hit a chord. Pure manipulation but there you go.

AntoinetteOuradi : I thought that ad was annoying precisely because they have her coming home from work. Perfectly-dressed career woman comes home to be perfect mother. Bleurgh.  Also, why did she think she could have a phone call whilst supervising a small child with a bag of flour??? Ah, it must be because she works outside the home, and is spending quality time with the child, a SAHM would know better than to give a small child a bag of flour.

BitterAndTwistedChoreDodger : Didn’t make me cry <heart of stone>

MangoTango : In the part where she walks out of the house and into the garden where her family are eating up a table, her husband suddenly turns into the spitting image of Tom from the Good Life. Anyone else notice that?

I think the bit where John Lewis woman is on her laptop and pissed off with her family she was probably on Mumsnet writing a post.

Not sure which women I most admire, the made-up John Lewis one or the Mumsnetters who don’t like her. It makes me respect all women, and I don’t always.

All good. Now I’ll watch again. So where’s my hanky?