The Tale of Thomas Burberry (2016) User Reviews

Brilliant

[caitlincole · 10/10 · 23 December 2016]

A beautiful and incredibly aesthetically pleasing short featuring the seemingly endless talent of Domhnall Gleeson. From the music to the hinted-at story line this ad showcases Burberry in a way we have not seen before. With beautiful scenes (the gold glitter and Sienna Miller's dramatic lake-side stride being personal favourites) and an intriguing love triangle this ad is ridiculously watchable and advertises the brand in a surprisingly subtle way, getting the audience invested in the founder as opposed to shoving a sweater in their face and yelling 'THIS IS BURBERRY, BUY THIS'.

I absolutely loved this advert, the cast is outstanding and the colour palette is cool and stylish. I actually wrote an analysis of this short and it landed me a work placement with an advertising company so big thanks to Burberry.

This is the way how to film a good ad

[RichardsMagic · 9/10 · 2 December 2020]

During the full duration I forgot it's advertising. Visually and accoustically impressive and entertaining.

Utterly forgettable piece of style over substance

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 16 December 2016]

"The Tale of Thomas Burberry" is a 3.5-minute live action short film from this year. The director is Oscar winner Asaf Kapadia and the title character is played by rising star Domhnall Gleeson (son of Brendan). The other cast members (James, Miller, West) are also pretty well-known award-winning actors. But sadly this little film that promotes the brand Burberry is far from a success. Story and plot feel almost non-existent. Instead we have many pretentious scenes that are clearly style over substance as I already wrote in the title of my review. The costumes, sets and makeup may all be fairly spectacular, but the story sure isn't and as a consequence the acting also is underwhelming, even if the writer is more to blame than the actors. Besides, I also think Gleeson, even if I like/love him in other projects, may not have been the greatest choice here as he has the aura of a simple man really and not of an icon. I don't recommend seeing this one. Thumbs-down.