grief is just love with nowhere to go: on the batman (2022)
the batman, se7en and the art of rising above vengeance
Anyone that knows me can tell you how much I love The Batman (2022). Aside from being a Twihard (RPatz, I <3), I genuinely believe it is one of the greatest movies of the 2020s. Structurally, tonally, the story is perfect.
Transforming Batman into what he is at his core — a detective with a mean streak — is excellent. Remove the costume and the cape and it could be a season of True Detective.
What always stuck with me was the ending. It’s so rare for a movie to stick the landing the way The Batman does. Bruce Wayne goes from what is essentially an angry teenager — he watched his parents be murdered in front of him — to an isolated adult seeking his own twisted sense of justice, to a man finally understanding he must rise above his anger.
Perhaps my bias runs deep. I do believe that Se7en is one of the greatest films of the last forty or so years. The Batman fixates on the terror and dread that is Gotham. It’s poverty-stricken, violent, and decayed. It’s such an interesting contrast that Bruce originally chooses to add to this environment, as though the citizens deserve to be punished — as if living in Gotham isn’t enough. His arc even ends on a similar note to Somerset’s: “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part.”
What other Batman films never got right — even Nolan (sorry) — was leaning too heavily into the spectacle that is Bruce Wayne. Yes, he’s a billionaire and a philanthropist, but who is Bruce Wayne?
Bruce Wayne watched his parents be brutally murdered in front of him. But in most versions, it’s only ever brought up in passing, like Uncle Ben being Peter Parker’s origin story. Both characters have endured significant trauma and grief, but what makes them resonate is the choice to use that pain in service of others.
It comforts a broken heart to think that grief is just love with nowhere to go. I think many people, Bruce Wayne specifically, lean into anger because it burns faster than grief. Anger is hot, immediate, intoxicating. Grief lingers. Grief haunts you.
So he decides he’ll be the hammer of justice for Gotham. But it’s not until the end that he concludes this task won’t bring his parents back. These vigilante sprees don’t absolve him of the guilt he feels about not being able to protect them. They just keep the cycle going and the wound fresh.
As someone with a laundry list of childhood trauma, it’s comforting to watch a character finally acknowledge this and try to let the past go. That’s why his closing monologue makes me so emotional. Because our scars don’t just mark us — they transform us. They teach us the power of endurance, the ache of survival, and the strength it takes to rise above our anger.