Trumbo is a conservative movie with a communist hero.

Except for the film’s opening, where Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter behind classic films like Spartacus and Roman Holiday, supports a strike at one of the studios, communism almost never enters into the equation. Instead you have a battle between two individuals, Trumbo, Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, great man, genius, natural screenwriter who can crank out a script for a movie in three days, against the anti-Semitic, red-baiting Hedda Hopper and a horde of mediocrities (for whom red-baiting is a good career move).

Trumbo prevails because he’s the better capitalist.

The film’s most satisfying moment is probably John Goodman going all John Goodman on a mousy little McCarthyite stooge who tries to bully him into firing his talented leftist screenwriter.

“I do this for the money and the pussy. Try and take that away from me.”

Like the Big Short, Trumbo captures some of the rebellious feelings of 2016. It’s not really a socialist movie per se, but it’s willing to line up behind a socialist or even a communist if he’s willing to take on the hated establishment. Watching Dalton Trumbo prevail against Hedda Hopper — Helen Mirren hamming it up like a Disney villain —  was almost as satisfying as watching Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.