Transgressive.

If Adam McKay gave me the opportunity to put a quote on the DVD box of the Academy Award-nominated The Big Short that is what it would be. One definition of the word transgressive is:

Of or relating to fiction, cinematography, or art in which orthodoxcultural, moral, and artistic boundaries are challenged by the representation of unconventional behavior and the use of experimental forms.

For anyone who read The Big Short book when it came out in 2010 it was hard to imagine any one actually being able to make a movie out of it, including Michael Lewis . At that time there was still some hope that some substantive changes would come about given the lessons learned from the housing bubble/mortgage fiasco/great recession.

The movie has five additional years of perspective on the topic. With that time the level of anger and disgust with the system really comes through. It’s hard to think of many mainstream Hollywood films with A-list actors taking on the system so directly. That being said the movie it isn’t a moralizing bore. It really is an entertaining piece of art.

I had been looking forward to The Big Short. I was not disappointed.