Michel Gondry and Elbow combine for John Lewis ad

H&M scored a high street coup by getting Wes Anderson to direct their Christmas ad last year, stealing the thunder away from John Lewis, who tend to reign supreme when it comes to Christmas promos. Not to be outdone, John Lewis have roped in eccentric French filmmaker Michel Gondry (director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) to make this year’s two-minute Christmas advert.

To add a touch of melancholy to Gondry’s whimsy, Elbow provide the soundtrack. Guy Garvey and co provide a mournful cover of The Beatles rock lullaby Golden Slumbers, from Abbey Road, which is sure to end up near the top on the charts by the end of the year.

The two-minute short is a playful riff on the perennial childhood fantasy of a monster lurking under the bed. But in the case of the little boy in Gondry’s film, the monster isn’t threatening to eat him; instead he is playing havoc with the boy’s sleeping pattern as he keeps him up half the night playing Scalextric.

Titled Moz the Monster, the ad is a suitably sweet little movie for Christmas, and a big improvement on John Lewis’s Buster the Boxer ad from last year, although we expect fewer memes to be inspired from Gondry’s effort. Take a look at the short in the player above.