Review of "A Tragedy of Riches by Tony Cointreau- Official Book Trailer" Co-Produced by Linda F. Radke & Zachary R. Simpson for Story Monsters

Score: 89/100 (8.9 out of 10)

A Tragedy of Riches by Tony Cointreau is a thought-provoking, scandal-heavy family saga about beauty, wealth, dependence, exploitation, and the way “gifts” can become traps. We had mixed opinions of the book itself, and we had very similar feelings about the book's trailer by the folks over at Story Monsters, namely co-producers Linda F. Radke & Zachary R. Simpson (who also directed it).

Of all the magnificent, glowing, incredible things that the crew has made over the years—including songs, books, and trailers—this one seems to be among the simplest, plainest, and most straightforward. That's not necessarily a bad thing as it gets the point across and effectively promotes the book to an extent, but it just seems like many of the other book trailers out there. It doesn't quite hit, grip, or stand out as much as the book trailers for I Know What You Do When I Go to School by Siona Talekar and The Case of the Missing Pink Piggy by Linda Harkey.

The trailer of I Know What You Do When I Go to School featured a Q&A with the inspirational young author as well as a look into her creative process with old drafts and glimpses at original artwork. The trailer for The Case of the Missing Pink Piggy features the colorful and marvelous illustrations and clips from the book by Mike Minick, accompanied by the brilliant narration of Immy Dymott, who beautifully voices over the trailer for the book.

Even the trailers/short documentary for Hiding in Holland by Shulamit Reinharz provided a lot of background information from the author about the book.

By comparison, there's none of that to be seen or experienced with the trailer for A Tragedy of Riches trailer. It lacks the oomph of those other trailers.

At just over a minute, it's quite short. It provides an effective hook ("What happens when the world wants your beauty but not your heart?"). The trailer continues with:

"Born with nothing.
Pushed to become.
EVERYTHING
Manipulated by love
BELOVE
Yet
ALONE"

This does get the message across that this is a book about someone who came from nothing, then was manipulated and exploited as they became wealthier and more successful. How much better would this have been if this were narrated by the author or with a beautiful female voice (since the main character is female)?

The music is also somewhat generic instrumental trailer music, compared to the crew's branded trailers which feature familiar, catchy tunes and original songs by composer Zachary Simpson. Our guess is that the song in this trailer is a stock song from some video editor. It just doesn't hit the same.

The visuals are actually quite good. There's a shot of the outside of an old big city apartment to show the protagonist's humble roots, that is then juxtaposed with an image of a mansion and expensive vehicles. We will say that the first image with the woman staring outside the window is quite dark and the setting is unclear. We're not sure if this is a theater or a dining room or something else. There are what appear to be chairs on the left, but they're arranged facing forward like at a speaking event rather than around a table like at a dinner. And there are spherical objects clustered on the right which could be balloons but could be yoga balls, it's so dark that it's hard to tell. A diamond and jewels pop up throughout the trailer, representing the vanity and artificial wealth of the antagonists as they exploit the protagonist, their cash cow.

The trailer also does something great in highlighting that Cointreau is an acclaimed and award-winning author. Having read three of his books, he deserves that clout and those kudos. It also features a positive quote by a fellow author, Cynthia Kern O'Brien, about the book. But blink and you'll miss it. We hardly noticed it until we watched this about ten times.

With all that said, this trailer gets the job done.

Honestly, we've been noticing a lot of video ads at the bottom of Amazon product pages that are of similar quality and essentially flow the same way. So, this is par for the course. 

​Check out the book on Amazon!