I Am…You Are….He/She/It Is….
December 8, 2016 4:18 PM   Subscribe

A Polish ad (in English) is winning the Christmas viral video war by a landslide.

“English for Beginners” was released just a couple days ago to promote the Polish online auction site Allegro, and features a retiree’s efforts to teach himself English, thanks to a book and audio tape purchased on the site. The ad ends with him packing a suitcase (also purchased on the site) and visiting England – and that’s when you learn the touching reason for his efforts.

The ad has already had over two million views, and is especially touching the hearts of UK viewers – with good reason. Allegro has reported that it was thinking of the many Poles who have emigrated to the UK in search of work, leaving relatives behind. “Despite the relatively close distance between the countries, family ties tend to weaken. Therefore, Christmas for many is a difficult time in which we yearn for more. For years, we’ve strived to make both Allegro - the largest e-commerce platform in the CEE region - as well as our communication to customers bring joy, touch the heart and cause a smile.”

There are some critics who’ve pointed out that the plot is a “straightwashed” version of a Wells Fargo ad from last year that had a similar plot, but didn’t enjoy the same viral fame. Most viewers, though, just sniffle a lot and wipe their eyes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos (118 comments total) 68 users marked this as a favorite
 
Holiday feels. Thanks!
posted by cyndigo at 4:28 PM on December 8, 2016


I've seen this ad about 25 times by now myself, and I STILL tear up at the very end EVERY TIME.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:33 PM on December 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


Teeny babby! So sweet.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:35 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Excellent ad! Knife and fork indeed!
posted by comealongpole at 4:36 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


And what a good dog! With his little label and everything.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 4:49 PM on December 8, 2016 [32 favorites]


May I be the first to point out all the dust in the air tonight? Because my eyes are and I can hardly whew.
posted by Mike Mongo at 5:00 PM on December 8, 2016 [7 favorites]


interracial family <3

I also love the priest/imam Amazon spot.
posted by longdaysjourney at 5:06 PM on December 8, 2016 [39 favorites]


I Am…You Are….He/She/It Is….

...the walrus?
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:15 PM on December 8, 2016 [11 favorites]


Those of you who've watched will understand when I say "the bathtub scene was funny".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:28 PM on December 8, 2016 [35 favorites]


CAT MOUSE
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:47 PM on December 8, 2016 [41 favorites]


Mrs C showed me that yesterday. It's nicely done. Advertising doesn't have to suck.
posted by Artful Codger at 5:55 PM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


Saw it a few days ago, it made me a weepy mess on my lunch break.

Also I'm Polish and his house was so accurate.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 5:56 PM on December 8, 2016 [16 favorites]


Alright, you got me. Bastard.
posted by Diablevert at 6:01 PM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


You know what I love about this? In three minutes, you know a TON about this guy, and so when he finally gets to the last "Hi," you've heard his voice in every damn tone of kindness, and the last one is STILL surprising.

Thanks for posting this.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:12 PM on December 8, 2016 [50 favorites]


"I love you! You are perfect!"
posted by kandinski at 6:17 PM on December 8, 2016 [19 favorites]


well fuck... pretty good. *sob*
posted by ChrisHartley at 6:20 PM on December 8, 2016


My hovercraft is full of eels.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:25 PM on December 8, 2016 [39 favorites]


I hate advertising; I think it is mostly a blight on the world.

However, that... was awesome, and whoever dreamed it up needs both a hug and a kick in the ass for making me cry.
posted by Mooski at 6:29 PM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


It reminded me of someone I once knew. So maybe I tested up extra.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:53 PM on December 8, 2016


Mods? Can we get a NSFE (Not Safe For Eyes) tag?

You bastards need to warn some of us, okay?
posted by Samizdata at 6:53 PM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


I mean, it's no Lion Dog, but I guess it's pretty good. *sniffles* *blinks away tears*
posted by redsparkler at 7:01 PM on December 8, 2016 [12 favorites]


The other Allegro commercials are also heartwarming although "PIES" is not about what you'd expect.
posted by bendy at 7:09 PM on December 8, 2016


sob
posted by E. Whitehall at 7:14 PM on December 8, 2016


"Be good dog!"
posted by shiny blue object at 7:21 PM on December 8, 2016 [25 favorites]


I loved it. What a sweet little film. Waterworks, totally.

I did burst out laughing when I saw the post it notes because I used to teach beginner ESL and that's really what we would do in our classroom. Everything had a yellow post it with an English word on it! If we had had a class dog, I'm sure it would've had one too.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:32 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ok, maybe I'm a jerk who judges other people's parenting (and will soon be cured of that), but the first time I saw this, I guessed right away it would be to meet a grandchild, and all I think about this is "Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?"

Or maybe the kid does speak Polish, and the grandfather was doing this as bonding thing, anyway? But really it would be way easier for the toddler to learn Polish than for the grandfather to learn English.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:40 PM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh man Bendy is right, here's another gorgeous Christmas one.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:54 PM on December 8, 2016 [9 favorites]


Oh crap, that one just made me burst out crying on the damn train.
posted by ejs at 7:59 PM on December 8, 2016


I was prepping my whatEVs for deployment but had to stow them unused because tots and grandpas always=win
posted by Caxton1476 at 8:01 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]




That link isn't working for some reason, Caxton - what is it?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:10 PM on December 8, 2016


But really it would be way easier for the toddler to learn Polish than for the grandfather to learn English.

You did get that the kid lives in the UK, right?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:12 PM on December 8, 2016 [12 favorites]


Apologies . . . The iPhone one with the teenager who makes the movie that makes his mom and grandma cry and he hugs his dad
posted by Caxton1476 at 8:13 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


Clearly I'm having an allergy attack. Only explanation.
posted by French Fry at 8:13 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Thanks for posting the Wells Fargo one too, I hadn't seen that and got more choked up about that one. But I'm a mom so easy target.
posted by corb at 8:13 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


That kid should have been in bed hours ago!

/doing it wrong
posted by resurrexit at 8:13 PM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


You did get that the kid lives in the UK, right?
Yes, though maybe not being UKian I'm unaware of things in the UK that make it impossible or especially difficult to pass on heritage languages? I've certainly known many people born and living in Canada who speak Polish (or other languages).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:34 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Jesper Ericstam has some pretty great ads - check out Ten Thumbs Tom.
posted by unliteral at 8:39 PM on December 8, 2016


Oh, and of I'm going to be implied-ly accused of doing it wrong, I might as well go all out: why didn't that guy pick his dad up at the airport? Really, you make your elderly dad find his own way to your home in a foreign country? That guy is really failing in his obligations as both a father and a son. And with a dad so willing to go the extra mile, you'd think he'd have picked some of that up.

I'm usually a sucker for maudlin tv ads, but somehow this one just doesn't do it.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:40 PM on December 8, 2016 [7 favorites]


Ok, maybe I'm a jerk who judges other people's parenting (and will soon be cured of that), but the first time I saw this, I guessed right away it would be to meet a grandchild, and all I think about this is "Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?"

Maybe the kid's mother doesn't speak Polish, and so the guys's son didn't want to teach their child a medium of communication that would exclude her mother? I have friends whose parents' didn't teach them a heritage language for exactly that reason.
posted by Itaxpica at 8:48 PM on December 8, 2016 [10 favorites]


Also if you want search engine ads that will make you tear up, the 'Reunion' ad that Google aired in India is a classic.
posted by Itaxpica at 8:49 PM on December 8, 2016 [26 favorites]


"Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?"

PROBABLY THEY'RE REALLY TIRED, OKAY? I HAVEN'T SLEPT MORE THAN TWO HOURS IN FIVE MONTHS.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:52 PM on December 8, 2016 [83 favorites]


My neighbor is Polish and has a little dog that looks EXACTLY like that dog, and I can't wait to make her cry with this!
posted by missmobtown at 9:01 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


(as I am crying now and no longer wish to be alone)
posted by missmobtown at 9:01 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


"and all I think about this is 'Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?'"

The focus on the grandfather learning Polish worked for me on a whole bunch of different levels. The biggest one being that this was age-inclusive (and racially diverse, and gender-role bending, and pro-EU), and that was a huge part of the message. Kids learn languages without even trying, and who knows, maybe this kid is doing that too. But it's really not the point. The theme of this ad is connection, reunion, family, etc. We see the story of this older man who is *delighted* to be taking on this very difficult task of learning about his granddaughter's culture, so that one day he can visit her on her terms. The grandfather proactively seeks help (books, audio) and demonstrates his commitment to learning through immersion (post-its) and joyful play (rubber duck time in the bath). He's also shameless (yelling I love you on the bus). And he is fearless (ordering the suitcase and taking off to the UK).

There is also a nice parallelism between the world the daughter lives in where she is learning all sorts of stuff, and the one the grandfather lives in. Where he too is learning lots of stuff, but it is much harder. But he's got wisdom and experience on his side, and it's evident when he greets her. His learning of language is a metaphor for his journey through life, which is much more interesting to be shared by someone who is nearer the end than the beginning.

Lastly, and this is the part I adore, this is a Christmas story. The grandfather is the embodiment of the Christmas spirit, and in many ways, of Santa Claus himself. Poland ain't the North Pole, but the general idea isn't far off.

I think a lot of that would be lost if the language-learning were reversed. Especially the old man's agency (heh, see what I did there) and the enduring magic of the holiday season* (not just for kids).

*Now go buy things.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:14 PM on December 8, 2016 [85 favorites]


This is going to drive me crazy, but I'm almost positive this is a near translation/close approximation of a different Christmas-y ad that went viral within the past few years. Same theme and tone. Someone learning/repeating a new concept, then heart-meltingly employing it with a child/new friend/some other heartstring tugger. It wasn't the Wells Fargo one listed in the OP.

Can anyone help me out here? Is this the equivalent of "There was this 80s sitcom, and in the opening credits one character painted over another character's face with a paint roller?"
posted by mudpuppie at 9:15 PM on December 8, 2016


My mental explanation (because although the couple are interracial, there is Skype! and the little girl looks different from both her parents and super shy) is that she is newly adopted/placed and thus the parents were home rather than stressing her out with a busy airport and the grandad had known she was coming but not exactly when, and that she would only speak English, and that he had basically jumped on a plane the moment they had called him to say 'she's here, they approved her placement' because he is a GRANDPA AT LAST and now I am sobbing again because they are so sweetly happy and he is so careful to get down to her height and talk gently to her and she is so hesitant and yet begins to smile at this stranger who we know is so FULL of love and patient dedicated work for this tiny wee miracle of a girl.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:17 PM on December 8, 2016 [51 favorites]


If only I had a penguin... I am sensing that you aren't filled with the magic of Christmas. You appear to be full of humbuggery.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:30 PM on December 8, 2016 [8 favorites]


But really it would be way easier for the toddler to learn Polish than for the grandfather to learn English.

He's Polish. And a Dziadek. "Easy" is not a concept readily accessible to him. Dedication and unconditional love is.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:44 PM on December 8, 2016 [24 favorites]


ffs *chin quiver*
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:59 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


search engine ads that will make you tear up

I would like to explore this as a genre.
posted by bendy at 10:19 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


In Chicagoland here, where so many signs are printed in English, Spanish and Polish (occasionally Chinese).

Many feels. Although not (to the best of my knowledge) a Pole myself.

Know many Poles. Bless 'em.
posted by habeebtc at 11:19 PM on December 8, 2016


Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?

Because little kids don't buy English for Beginners books from auction sites.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:30 PM on December 8, 2016 [32 favorites]


It's really odd. You know it's going to be exactly what it says on the tin, you've seen the link going around the net, you know it's a Christmas ad, you know where it's going. You know. And still at the end -- bam. Weeping actual tears.


(I think that means the actor is good? His whole voice changes, so soft.)
posted by troyer at 11:36 PM on December 8, 2016 [10 favorites]


But you know, fuck the nitpicking, fuck the advertising, fuck the maudlin sentimentality that gets me every time with things like this, be amazed and awed by how perfect a vision of Britain is depicted in less than ten seconds of screen time, a much more attractive vision of the country than anything the little Englanders and Brexiteers could offer, where young Polish lads can come to London and start families with beautfiful British Black women to create adorable little shy girls together for grandpa to come over and spoil.

That it's a vision of Britain created for a Polish company by presumably a Polish advertising agency is almost as perfect as the time the BNP used a Polish flown Spitfire in one of their leaflets ranting about the evils of unrestrained immigration of Eastern Europeans.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:37 PM on December 8, 2016 [61 favorites]


Aww. Now I want a Polish grandpa for Christmas.

Also, maybe it's just the Finn in me responding to the oh so familiar, shy awkwardness of the whole scene, but this Finnish Christmas ad featuring a dad and his transgender teenage daughter got me a little choked up this season, too.
posted by sively at 11:48 PM on December 8, 2016 [41 favorites]


(Oh, and the text in the end translates roughly as "let the gift speak for you". Although I think the final look of tenderness on the dad's face already does that.)
posted by sively at 12:01 AM on December 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


That was a very well done ad-- well executed, well acted. Just gorgeous. I appreciated the tacitly anti-Brexit inclusivity of the message. But I didn't cry. I didn't even well up once.

So if there's anyone else out there who was also left curiously unmoved by all this, I wanted to let you know that you're not alone.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 12:03 AM on December 9, 2016


Thanks. I needed a good cry, and this got me going.

If only I had a penguin: We immigrated to England when I was 4, my brother was 3. As I understand it, our parents spoke Danish to us consistently, but my brother and I would only speak English. Family stories about my brother and me always have us speaking English. I don't remember.

Also, when we had a terrible family crisis some time ago, both my brother and I reverted to our childhood English (public school w for r style), to the confusion of everyone around us.
BTW my granddad was known locally for his perfect English. He had the worst accent ever, and I think my amusement at this is the foundational core of my lack of respect for authorities. He loved talking in English with me and I think he was very proud of having English-speaking grandchildren in England. When I see this ad, I see my own granddad coming to England to see me and yeah, the tears..

Also, I'm happy that my granddad isn't alive to live with 2016. He couldn't have dealt with it.
posted by mumimor at 12:15 AM on December 9, 2016 [12 favorites]


But really it would be way easier for the toddler to learn Polish than for the grandfather to learn English.

That's what you think. Jezyk polski jest jednym z trudniejszych jezykow na swiecie.
(Apologies for any typos - I'm a bit rusty.)
posted by sour cream at 12:21 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


The first time dziadek gives the kid a bath is going to be interesting.

But really it would be way easier for the toddler to learn Polish than for the grandfather to learn English.

There are a million times more resources for learning English and many more things you can do with the language. But that kid is going to learn some Polish when they go to visit dziadek and his dog in Poland.
posted by pracowity at 12:37 AM on December 9, 2016


This Star Wars themed Filipino ad got my eyes a bit dusty.
posted by eye of newt at 12:52 AM on December 9, 2016 [9 favorites]


Yes, well, as a foreigner in the country where I currently live these kinds of messages hit especially hard/poignantly.

That was a terrific little piece of story-telling.

(My kids' grandparents would never have gone through the effort of learning english - and I suspect my parents wouldn't have learned german if the shoe was on the other foot. It's that little nugget of wish-fulfillment that is especially emotionally toothsome.)
posted by From Bklyn at 1:05 AM on December 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


As a Brit, who's lived in Poland and knows some Polish...

Who's to say that the kid speaks Polish but Granddad did this anyway?

I get a little warming in the cockle of my heart when I hear mixed race kids speaking Polish in London.

Anecdote, every Polish person I know in London in a relationship is with a partner who isn't Polish. Many mixed race couples. Lots of people who feel that their lifestyle, relationships and/or partners wouldn't be accepted if they were to move to Poland. Which makes Brexit incredibly heartbreaking for us all. Not welcome here, not welcome back home.

I'm not Polish, so I don't want to say for sure, but I suspect this advert is speaking to Poland as much as it's speaking to the UK.
posted by Helga-woo at 1:29 AM on December 9, 2016 [27 favorites]


I seem to have got a case of very late-season hayfever here...

Also, wasn't the kid speaking Polish at the end?
posted by Fuchsoid at 2:15 AM on December 9, 2016


I love the fact that they showed him sitting on the pull-down, backward-facing seat in the black cab, even though he was its only passenger. Only someone completely unfamiliar with the city (and very nervous about the coming encounter) would do that.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:41 AM on December 9, 2016 [13 favorites]


Oh my Christ I was crying before he finished packing his case. I'm crying again now just replaying the thing in my head. Thank you for this. Also I'm just about to post it in a Christmas-party-organising group thread I'm in which includes 6 Polish people, a French woman, an Albanian woman, a Russian man and two Portuguese people, all of whom live in Northern Ireland and have children here while their parents live in their countries of origin, and goddammit if there isn't an outpouring of tears I will be mightily disappointed.
posted by billiebee at 3:29 AM on December 9, 2016 [6 favorites]


To the humbuggers: okay maybe he's learning English becuase he figures that the granddaughter is going to be speaking two languages and he decided that he wanted to do that too, didja think of that? ....Now go watch the other one about Santa.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:43 AM on December 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Ahem.

The actor himself is great - such an expressive face. There's this really subtle look on his face right when he first gets the book and starts looking through it - a small, but definite, "oh, shit, this is gonna be hard." And then he's JUST starting to tear up when he meets the little girl.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:46 AM on December 9, 2016 [9 favorites]


God it just gets better with watching. 'I love you... you're perfect.' THAT'S WHAT HE PLANS TO SAY TO THE GRANDDAUGHTER

** wails **
posted by StephenF at 4:00 AM on December 9, 2016 [21 favorites]


This is sooo ... So very much ...
posted by kadmilos at 4:02 AM on December 9, 2016


Yeah, I guess I'm another bad grandchild who had terrible failure parents who raised me wrong. My father's first language was French but my mother was American through and through (though 3nd-generation from Polish immigrants and she didn't speak any Polish so I guess this history of failure and abuse and neglect runs in my family). Since both of them were fluent in English, and only one of them fluent in French and none of them fluent in Polish, we spoke English at home. And at school and out and about because we lived in a predominantly-English-speaking country. So when my grandparents came to visit (and ultimately moved) from France, we also spoke with them in English, because my grandfather was originally from Colorado and English was his first language, though he'd been living in France and Germany for like 40 years, and though my grandmother was born and raised in France she also could speak English, though that side of the family (my father and aunt, their parents) spoke French at home and amongst themselves. Although my grandmother, who was also a prickly person and an alcoholic, shared your same attitude about my parents' failures to teach me and my sister French, and carried that resentment to her grave, refusing to come to my wedding or my father's (her son's) funeral, really, to ever visit or communicate with anyone, ever, about anything. And then she died, bitter and alone with no friends, in a dusty, somewhat run-down house, that her failure of a daughter-in-law (my mother, who owned the house), and my husband who she never met, had to clean out.

So in the balance, I think that sure, it'd be great to be bilingual and to have learned French as a baby or for the kid in the commercial to learn Polish. But you know, in the balance, if that's not gonna happen, it's great that the granddad is warm and loving and crossing that bridge to communicate with his grandchild because fuck the alternative.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 4:07 AM on December 9, 2016 [18 favorites]


search engine ads that will make you tear up

I would like to explore this as a genre.


Jess Time
posted by Rock Steady at 4:47 AM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


And Parisian Love
posted by Rock Steady at 4:57 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


"God it just gets better with watching. 'I love you... you're perfect.' THAT'S WHAT HE PLANS TO SAY TO THE GRANDDAUGHTER "

Then what to make of "I'm gonna fucking kill you?"
posted by sutt at 5:11 AM on December 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


His thoughts on Nigel Farage?
posted by billiebee at 5:15 AM on December 9, 2016 [17 favorites]


> That link isn't working for some reason, Caxton - what is it?

Just take out the [?app=desktop#/] text from the link - it's this ad.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 5:20 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Maybe the kid doesn't speak Polish because she hasn't learned to talk yet?

Personally, I don't care. The ad is great and made me cry my ass off. Well done.
posted by Autumnheart at 5:38 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


I suppose I am a Pole in an interracial relationship living abroad in the EU ('interracial' is not a word I generally use, we're just people man). This video made me think of my grandfather: he wrote, designed and published a book on his computer; kept a blog; did radio interviews about his time during the war. Education and self-education stayed with him until the very end. My now-wife and I miss going on fishing outings with him in the lake district tremendously.
posted by romanb at 5:46 AM on December 9, 2016 [13 favorites]


If only I had a penguin...: Oh, and of I'm going to be implied-ly accused of doing it wrong, I might as well go all out: why didn't that guy pick his dad up at the airport? Really, you make your elderly dad find his own way to your home in a foreign country? That guy is really failing in his obligations as both a father and a son. And with a dad so willing to go the extra mile, you'd think he'd have picked some of that up.

The son and his family live in a high-density area of central London (you can see the WC2 postcode on the street sign at 2:28). It's extremely common for central Londoners to not own a car at all, owing to factors including the high price/low availability of permanent parking, the congestion charge, the excellent public transport network, and so forth. (Also note the bicycle chained to their front railings at 2:31.)
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 5:46 AM on December 9, 2016 [15 favorites]


There are some critics who’ve pointed out that the plot is a “straightwashed” version of a Wells Fargo ad from last year that had a similar plot, but didn’t enjoy the same viral fame. Most viewers, though, just sniffle a lot and wipe their eyes.

They may be an opposite-sex couple - but it also has a subtly progressive note, significant for Eastern Europe: they are an interracial couple.
posted by jb at 5:47 AM on December 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


Wow that made me cry a whole bunch! I sent it to my mom who is a first-time grandmother of a five-month-old and I think it will make her cry too! Then she'll show it to my dad and it will probably make him cry as he is also a first-time grandparent! There is just going to be a fuck-ton of happy crying in my family! Also I predict that everyone will tell me how much they like the dog.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 5:50 AM on December 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


You did get that the kid lives in the UK, right?

If I only had a penguin is just being snarky because she was raised bilingual in an anglophone country - and I hope she plans to raise her kid(s) that way too! so useful!

as for the car thing: when was the last time you picked up your parents from the airport, penguin? and you're always trying to cage my SO into driving you places.
posted by jb at 5:50 AM on December 9, 2016


As a parent of a new child thinking about grandparents a lot this year, I suspected what was happening a bit before it did, which was nice because I got like an extra 30 seconds of crying out of it.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:53 AM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Heads-up to people looking for tearing-up ads with political messages, the South Indian Google ad that Itaxpica linked to is absolutely a huge tearjerker and has a cross-border political message.

The Polish Santa ad also made me cry big gulping sobs.

So, search engines and insurance companies, right?
posted by brainwane at 5:54 AM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


As a parent of a new child thinking about grandparents a lot this year, I suspected what was happening a bit before it did, which was nice because I got like an extra 30 seconds of crying out of it.

Also if your dad spoke a different language than the kraken he would absolutely do this.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:09 AM on December 9, 2016


(ugly snorfly crying at my desk)

Mudpuppie, it's not Christmassy, but another one in this vein I love is the South African (whiskey!) ad where the father learns to read so he can read his son's book. Here it is.
posted by kimberussell at 6:10 AM on December 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


I remember a like 15-second ad that played on TV in California in the 2000s where what you see is a woman in a hospital bed giving birth, and then the audio slowly changes to someone announcing a graduating class of like 2019, and starting to announce names. (Insurance or healthcare ad, I think.) I'm remembering it because of the Santa ad. It made me cry the same way. WHY! To quote my spouse, crying happens when emotions are too big for your body. What am I feeling that's too big for my body? Life is precious and fragile and happens so fast and so slow at the same time? We work in the present to build towards these visions that we have so little control over? We have these traditions and relationships that mean so much to us but all they are is us? Is this basically the transmutation of existential dread, and our drive to overcome it, into an ad instead of a hymn?
posted by brainwane at 6:10 AM on December 9, 2016 [12 favorites]


Also I predict that everyone will tell me how much they like the dog.

To nitpraise in lieu of nitpick, I was so pleased they showed the dog happy and loved in the arms of its pet sitter.
posted by gladly at 6:21 AM on December 9, 2016 [21 favorites]


By pick his dad up at the airport, I included go to the airport to meet dad and cab it back with him. I've picked people up at the airport that way. I don't own a car. And I always pick.my parents up at the airport, jb, every time they travel. And they're not even visitors.

I swear I'm not usually a grinch. It's probably because of have no Christmas tree.

Oh yeah, the dog is awesome.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:31 AM on December 9, 2016


The alternate ending version is pretty obvious, but nice if you want a break from wiping away tears.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:48 AM on December 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


Shit. I didn't even make it to the end. Ugly sobbing at "pee-yamas," because that's how my dad used to say it.
posted by BrashTech at 6:51 AM on December 9, 2016 [11 favorites]


The alternate ending yt version is pretty obvious

I have perished *_*
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:57 AM on December 9, 2016


"Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?"

Maybe he works 14 hours a day at some shitty job so he can't really do it himself -- if just reading bedtime stories in his native language and such were enough, my niece and nephew would be fluent in Finnish already -- and can't afford Polish School.

Maybe English is the only language he and his wife/gf have in common -- she could easily be an ESOL immigrant herself -- and they do English because that's their family's language and doing the family thing is more important than doing the Dad thing, or the Mom thing. This is exactly why my ex's mother spoke English at home instead of her mother's Norwegian or her father's German; because their family together was more important than either of their backgrounds.

Maybe she is profoundly autistic and not expected to ever be verbal.

Maybe he has always been an anglophile and never felt particularly Polish and was happy to get the fuck out of Poland and never look back, going to where he has always wanted to be and where he finally feels like he can be himself for the first time.

Maybe he just dislikes Poland and Polish society for whatever reason.

Maybe he is very happy to have put Poland behind him for some concrete reason and wants to focus on the future.

why didn't that guy pick his dad up at the airport?

The flight grandpa (and the family) could afford, or that Stubborn As Fuck Old Grandpa insisted on for some other reason, landed when Dad was working.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:08 AM on December 9, 2016 [17 favorites]


Anyway, the idea that of course everyone is very proud of their ethnic heritage and views it as simply and easily great and nonproblematic seems a very privileged position. Lots of immigrant families in many places have chosen to focus on their new nationality for reasons that seem good enough to them, and not just some kind of laziness, and frankly second-guessing them seems kind of gross.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:21 AM on December 9, 2016 [19 favorites]


Guys, the world is falling apart and there is nothing we can do. Could we at least not argue about a commercial? <3
posted by mumimor at 7:23 AM on December 9, 2016 [17 favorites]


Also sobbed at the Wells Fargo one, which I had never seen before. Keep 'em comin.'
posted by knownassociate at 7:33 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


The language thing is hard. My parents were firm on English-only in the home and now I am a grown up Hispanic woman who speaks Spanish like a baby and is hideously embarrassed to do so. But hey, no accent, so good job parents I guess on my successful assimilation.

That said, the ad is cute and I don't feel the need to project my feels about being language robbed on it.
posted by corb at 7:41 AM on December 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


It's not touching, per se, but I did really enjoy the dog ad, and then the dog watching the dog ad.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:43 AM on December 9, 2016 [7 favorites]


There are so many things wrong with this ad. Let me tell you about them.

1) The child cannot speak her grandfather's language.
2)The "tolerant" family with young toddler found it more convenient to stay home rather than visit Poland!
3) Polish grandfather does all the work. Lazy son? Has sex with partner, has child, raises child in new country, opens door, smiles, hugs. Big fucking deal.
4) Not enough diversity is represented. This ad could have been so much better if it showed several slime molds fusing to form a hyphae through the millenia.
5) The really thoughtful thing would have been to send a loaded up ipad to grandad so he could facetime endlessly like a rectangular spectre, rather than take a trip in messy messy meatspace.
6) Pick up your dad at the airport, what kind of a son are you? At least show 15 minutes bickering on the phone back and forth about no it is not necessary to warm the heart cockles.
posted by benzenedream at 8:30 AM on December 9, 2016 [11 favorites]


1) The child cannot speak her grandfather's language.

That child is barely old enough to walk. And it's a commercial. Who knows if the kid has any language at all.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:08 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


out of the 5 potential languages i could've learned from grandparents i only picked up one because it is so often heard all over nyc: yiddish. of the polish, german, hungarian, and russian that could otherwise have been spoken around the house, i rarely heard nor ever learned hardly a single word. not everyone emigrates from a place they want to remember, even if loved ones remain behind.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:22 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Awww. I was at a family gathering recently and we were just remarking about how my aunt and uncle's English had markedly improved since my cousin's kids started getting to the verbal stage. Okay, so they weren't starting from zero, but it had definitely gone from "minimally functional" to "pretty darned good". (The kids are also mixed-race and know a few phrases in their heritage language, but ime it's really hard to do the "kids just pick up another language" thing when one of the parents doesn't speak it and full immersion at home just isn't feasible.)
posted by btfreek at 9:26 AM on December 9, 2016


That was very sweet. I wish the doggie could have gone too.
posted by JanetLand at 9:43 AM on December 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


My kids are being raised bilingual, Cantonese and English. The best practice for bilingual homes is to be consistent as to who speaks what. So: my wife speaks only Cantonese to them. I speak only English. My in-laws, who do most of the childcare when we can't, speak Cantonese to them, especially since they themselves are not fluent in English.

My wife, who is a teacher, has shorter hours than I do, plus she has summers off. So, she necessarily spends more time with them.

I bring all of this up to point out that, at the end of the day, my kid is 2.5 years old and he barely speaks English, and we live in the US. Language acquisition isn't something you can just will into existence.

So, yeah, depending on the family situation, it's pretty silly to expect a kid of that vintage to know Polish, especially since the mom is presumably not Polish herself, and also since the kid doesn't even talk in the commercial.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:51 AM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


To nitpraise in lieu of nitpick, I was so pleased they showed the dog happy and loved in the arms of its pet sitter.

Guessing where grampa was headed, I was a little worried they wouldn't show what happened to the dog! But then I thought, he's clearly a nice man, he's probably worthy of that nice dog...
posted by praemunire at 9:57 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh, also, the reason why the son didn't pick up his grandpa from the airport is because he has a really little kid. It's way easier and more pleasant for everybody for grandpa to just take a cab, so that when he arrives they can all relax with a home-cooked meal. Because granda is kind and wise, I suspect that he had insisted upon this plan.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:04 AM on December 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


I wish the doggie could have gone too.

I'm now awaiting the follow-up ad showing how the dog uses the service to get to visit the kid, too.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:14 AM on December 9, 2016 [11 favorites]


that... was awesome, and whoever dreamed it up needs both a hug and a kick in the ass for making me cry.

I saw a quote of a quote of a quote about this somewhere, and it was something like how the ad agency was saying "the writer cried when he wrote the script, the director was crying when he was shooting it, the editor was crying in post-production, and now it's the Internet's turn!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's not touching, per se, but I did really enjoy the dog ad, and then the dog watching the dog ad.

Aww, that was really charming. Also, I sometimes forget John Lewis is also the name of a store and was very confused for a second.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:27 AM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?"

I grew up in Australia, with Polish parents. For a while, I had to go to Saturday morning Polish school, which was a combination of grammatical theory (and Polish has a lot of grammar; it makes German look positively Scandinavian by comparison) and history from a nationalist-romantic point of view. As you can imagine, most of the kids resented having to go; the whole exercise seemed backward-looking, being also larded with the innate nostalgic conservatism of expatriate communities. I stopped going when I was about 13, when my parents divorced and my mother married an Australian (who, to his credit, tried taking Polish classes at night school, with predictable results). From then on, I generally avoided speaking Polish throughout my teens, and had no reason to speak it afterward, with the result that my vocabulary is by now full of holes. I can struggle out a sentence, patched up with English words, should I need to.

I suspect that Polish Saturday schools will remain a universal phenomenon where there are Polish migrants, and also that Polish is not going to get the sort of cultural cachet that inspires large numbers of people to learn it without one form or another of coercion any time soon, what with Poland being associated with Catholic ultra-conservatism, distrust of foreign influences and an almost Putinist devotion to “traditional values”.
posted by acb at 11:41 AM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Why doesn't the kid speak Polish? What's wrong with this guy's son that he doesn't make sure his kid learns his heritage language?"

For heaven's sake. It was a nice, sweet ad for a Polish company that told a fictional(!) story about a Polish man using a Polish-made website to connect with his grandchild. This is a fictional family in a fictional situation. In a three-minute ad. Can we not just enjoy the sentiment without scrutinizing the parenting choices of imaginary people?
posted by zarq at 12:22 PM on December 9, 2016 [19 favorites]


> I also love the priest/imam Amazon spot.

I just found out tonight that the imam in that advert, Zubeir Hassam, is the Principal of the Muslim School in Oadby barely three-and-a-half miles away from me. #LeicestershireRepresent!
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 12:28 PM on December 9, 2016 [7 favorites]


As a trilingual todler (who developed into a bilingual child) it really fucked with my head when people would start switching languages on me. People were divided into language categories, and MUST NOT TRANSGRESS THEM! Therefore the correct response to the grandpa would have been an annoyed "No!".
posted by HFSH at 12:33 PM on December 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Bloody Poles...
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:11 PM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh, are we letting the John Lewis ads in? Because they're pretty good at this. Although they didn't get it this year, 2015's Man in the Moon was a tearjerker (loneliness), and 2013's The Bear and the Hare got me (animals, and possibly Lily Allen's cover).

I suppose Sainsbury's would be the 2nd-place competition (?), and their 2015 ad redeemed a 'cat-astrophy' with an It's a Wonderful Life ending. Back in 2014, they picked the 100th anniversary of WWI's Christmas Truce.
posted by bartleby at 4:14 PM on December 9, 2016


"Back in 2014, they picked the 100th anniversary of WWI's Christmas Truce ."

Literally the most horrifying Christmas ad I have ever seen!!!! WHYYYYYY???
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:05 AM on December 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Eyebrows McGee, thank you for the warning. We watched that in my household and my spouse said "that was exactly what I thought it was going to be". The cruelty of it, a kind of taunt.
posted by brainwane at 6:32 AM on December 12, 2016


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