Elton John plays a starring role in British department store John Lewis’ holiday ad for 2018, which was released Thursday.
But the promo that traces the music icon’s successful career back to the moment he received a piano for Christmas as a young child has been met with mixed reaction.
Check out the ad here:
Many people on Twitter said the ad ― titled “The Boy And The Piano” and set to John’s ’70s classic “Your Song” ― was “fantastic,” with one person praising its “endearing message.”
Others, however, said the promo that cost around $8.6 million and uses actors to depict various stages of John’s life was a “shameless plug” for John’s final Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which kicked off in September, and the upcoming 2019 “Rocketman” biopic movie of his life.
The airing of the John Lewis ad has in recent years unofficially marked the start of the festive period in the United Kingdom. Moz the monster took center stage in 2017:
Buster the dog did so in 2016:
In 2015, the man on the moon made people well up:
As did the penguin in 2014:
The bear and the hare melted hearts in 2013:
The snowman did the same in 2012:
And in 2011, it was all about “The Long Wait.”