How Eyeshadow, Nirvana and Imposter Syndrome Made Me Fall For The Bat: The Batman (2022) Review

How Eyeshadow, Nirvana and Imposter Syndrome Made Me Fall For The Bat: The Batman (2022) Review

Recently, I saw The Batman (2022).

The hype delivered —all the hype turned out not to be hype, after all.

This movie was medicine — this movie was the perfect culmination for every millennial Goth, Emo, Doomer and Alt Kid, who now, 30 or nearing it, felt the very bones of this film and characterization resonate with them.

Since his conception in 1939, The Dark Knight established himself as DC’s flagship hero.

His mythos is iconic, and his premise is simple: An orphaned boy witnesses the murder of his parents and becomes a vigilante of justice against the looming criminal underworld of his beloved city.

With his characterization relatively consistent over the past 83 years, Batman’s motivations and personality have been a fixture of his character, as much as his signature tech and gadgets are.

But the facade of a confident, decadent playboy billionaire chasing high-society beauties and femme fatales and partying harder than a fratboy doesn’t quite add up to what Bruce really would be.

Would a survivor of violent childhood trauma develop into a confident playboy and financial player? And, of all things, a well-balanced vigilante by night?

Would a Bruce Wayne of our generation, this generation burnt-out on impossible societal demands, sensory and task overload equal to mental patients of the ‘50’s, and facing a doomed economy and political collapse of major countries, would he be a self-assured poster boy for capitalism?

Not hardly.

Matt Reeves’ reimagining of the Caped Crusader doesn’t so much deconstruct the Bruce Wayne vs. Batman dichotomy as it defiantly shows an iconoclastic Bruce Wayne embodying Batman.

Bruce only feels like his genuine self when he dons the mask. Behind the mask, he’s no longer the dead, hollow trust-fund product of corrupt high-society, but a dark force fueled by vengeance that is becoming, as he puts it, “the shadow itself”.

This is not the classic Batman, established in his own methods, established with his own rogues’ gallery of repeat enemies, usually of Gotham’s highest criminal underworld.

No. This is a Batman, a Year Two Batman. He’s established, at best, a frail trust with a defiant police lieutenant, and attracted the scorn and suspicion of the rest of the established police force. He can’t even command the respect of rookie cops at this point.

This is a young man out for retribution and striking fear into the overwhelming tide of crime and chaos — he fights chaos with his own brand of chaos. There’s no network in place, nothing sophisticated. This is a crazy kid going on the streets, more daring than an extreme urban explorer, staking out criminal activity and carrying out investigations, armed with some surveillance tech, a hoodie and camouflage eyeshadow that screams My Chemical Romance in 2008.

Bruce hasn’t assumed any responsibility for his family’s legacy, or even any involvement in his father’s company.

Alfred’s role has changed too. No longer the supportive butler of the old comics, but not quite the snarky consultant of Snyder’s reimaginings, Andy Serkis’ Level-headed Alfred is Bruce’s guardian as well as the guardian ofBruce’s company and fortune.

Despite inheriting a multi-billion corporation, Bruce rejects his responsibilities. He vehemently reminds Alfred he “doesn’t care” about his family legacy. He only cares about having an effect on the city —even if it kills him.

There is a softer father-and-son dynamic between this younger, broken Bruce and the gentler Alfred than say the tense conflict between the much older and dogmatic Bruce and defiant Alfred of Snyder’s version.

Serkis’ Alfred, though brief, definitely embodies the role of a genuine guardian of Bruce. He cares over Bruce’s erratic mental and physical health — he anticipates the day he can sigh in relief when Bruce abandons the vigilante business.

He fusses, like a watchful parent, to make sure Bruce showers and eats like a normal functioning human. Bruce complies, begrudgingly.

(Sure, he showers. But eats only one blueberry. While trudging downstairs, clothed in an oversize shirt and donning on sunglasses at the breakfast table. Iconic. And typical of our exhausted apathy — who hasn’t done this?)

If further proof of Bruce’s influence of millennialism is needed, he defies this infringing reproach from Alfred, with a classic, “You’re not my father.” Complete with eyes darkened, raccoon-fashioned, like he just joined the Black Parade in 2006.

Alfred sighs, with evident hurt etched in his gnarled features, “I’m well aware of that.”

As Bruce goes down a rabbit-hole investigation of Gotham’s corruption, he finds himself the next target of the Riddler’s killing spree. He speeds towards Wayne Manor, frantic with crazed panic — he knows if he’s not killed, Alfred will be killed.

Pattinson achieves an impressive feat throughout the entire film — he conveys emotions, subtle and powerful, underneath the iconic mask. The mask usually, living up to its purpose, “masks” all visible emotions on an actor’s face.

But here, Pattinson, with the deft delivery not unlike the mastery of Kabuki theatre, uses the very mask to express the bareness of Bruce himself through the dark force of Batman.

It’s a lesson in acting worth taking note.

Despite masked, we see an authentic, raw terror seize Bruce- his hardness breaks into an almost child-like vulnerability and horror when he can’t get ahold of Alfred.

I’ll be as bold as to compare its rawness of vulnerability and desperation, a sense of powerlessness, to Cavill’s agonized pleading stare and broken sobs, when he begs for his own mother to be saved.

Compare the scenes — it’s basically two men, seemingly in control before, now reduced to frightened, tender boys when they realize their parent figure is threatened with a gruesome end. But it’s more than that. It’s them witnessing the loss and destruction of a figure that serves as their only tether of care and the concept of family.

Bruce, in those 12 painful seconds, becomes the crushed boy of 10 who’s witnessed the loss of his parents, not the metal-hard demon cutting through the criminal underbelly.

And Bruce’s entire foundation of belief comes undone. He learns his father aided a prominent mafioso, and later, asked a “favor” from said mob boss to take down a journalist determined to expose the Wayne family’s dark side during Thomas Wayne’s campaign 20 years ago.

Bruce faces the reality of his father’s sins in harder ways.

We typically associate, throughout comic and media portrayals, Bruce as a tough, almost impenetrable person. Sure, moments of sympathy and powerlessness emerge in some instances, usually to showcase a villain’s tragic fall and elicit emotions from us.

However, we see a damaged Bruce even more broken, shambling to grasp at the truth in a world obscure by its own facades of concepts like “upstanding” and “respectable”.

Bruce masks himself to “unmask” himself and cut through the sea of masks he finds that Gotham is built upon.

Unmasked, Bruce struggles to hold conversation as a citizen by daylight. He struggles with the mundane socialization, the mincing civilities demanded by society for “being normal.”Eye contact is a tiring chore, as expressed by his weary grimaces and hollow-eyed stares. Speaking is a herculean task, reserved for necessity.

He enters daylight for this, wincing at the overcast dimness of day, donning sunglasses again against the gray obscure sky.

(As a person struggling with photophobia, I share your pain, Bruce. I too wear shades on cloudy days- it’s just too damn bright.)

It’s this duality of Pattinson’s performance, the dark, demonic intensity of his nocturnal self, fueled by a palpable rage and hate of others and himself, juxtaposed with the torments of dealing with socialization as a trapped introvert, that form a complete, rounded characterization.

But further completion of Bruce as a person, is his own arc of growth.

It begins with the emergence of a softer side he discovers when he meets Selina Kyle. Like him, she is fueled by vengeance and shares a mutual darkness with Bruce. She too wears a mask.

By day, she struggles as a club worker, waiting the tables of dirtbags, enduring the sexual harrasment that comes with the territory. By night, she moonlights as a cat burglar of the elite, maybe robbing some of the sleazebags who harassed her hours ago. They rob her dignity, she robs their priceless antiques.

But unlike Bruce, Selina carries herself with street smarts and social finesse earned the hard way through the mean club life and street. Underneath the cool jadedness, she retains a hidden sympathy for “strays” — she takes in multiple feline companions, but she also fiercely protects a vulnerable club worker, Annika, a (possibly illegal) Russian immigrant.

And it’s this bond that drives Selina to risk her own life for avenging Annika’s death.

And perhaps Bruce is another “stray” Selina has taken in, in her own way.

For the first time, Bruce is both fascinated by another person, but also inspired by the same person.

Zoe Kravitz radiates a striking tenacity as Selina Kyle- she also embodies, like Pattinson, a vulnerability beneath Selina’s determined hardness and jaded experience. She fleshed a human, complete portrayal of an otherwise contradictory character. Her motivations were fueled by vengeance, not gain.

This was a Catwoman who wasn’t a caricature driven by spite, but a woman surviving in a cruel world with her wits- and could open her heart and home when she found the right kind of “stray”.

Kravitz’s emotional softness brought nuance, depth, and a surprising but winning tenderness to Selina’s character arc as well.

And it’s these complex layers within Selina’s unique character that captivate Bruce.

A tenderness, both alarming and entirely alien, overtakes him. We see this emerge vividly when he replays video footage of his conversation with Selina from a previous investigation.

There also surfaces, on his usual hardness, a peace around Selina, when they converse through her ocular camera he gave her. It’s the first time, aside from Alfred, that Bruce experiences full ease at socializing.

Not confronting thugs as Batman, but an ordinary, chill dude in his own pad. A quiet, small smile spreads on his face when he hears and sees Selina resume their communication. This too-brief exchange shows both the Bat and Cat letting down their shields and masks.

To quote Cobain’s lyrics, “Come As You Are, Come As You Were, Come As I Want You To Be.”

But onto the iconic components:

The Batmobile. Often the vehicle of superhero standard and the dream of the male-power fantasy, this is not the sleek, all-purpose networking station of Ferrari style we associate with the comic, or even the iteration of Nolan, nor the clunky tank of Snyder’s vision.

No. It’s put together, patched like bare bones of bars, exposed engine turbine, low-rider front and sides, much like a Cali-racer on dirt roads.

But it’s tough. It’s also flexible, able to whisk and whip around pile-ups and obstacles. It’s more driven by Bruce’s demonic intensity than any engineering sophistication.

The car chase with the Penguin, already deemed rightfully a classic, is not fueled by the cool tech of past depictions, but the brutal force of Bruce tearing into his prey like a fierce, relentless devil.

Reeves’ infuses many genres into this film — we have film noir, for sure. But the confrontations, the revelations, the showdowns, all evoke the grit of Westerns. The aerials, the micro-shots, are a nod to arthouse cinema. And the close-ups and careful following of each character’ faces are both revealing and alarming, like a psychological thriller.

The hyperrealism of Gotham itself grounds this in reality.

We can easily assign New York or any other Eastern Seaboard city to Gotham.

The rogues are realistic.

Stripped of the colorful, cartoonish clothing and designs, as well as caricature characterizations, the rogues are too grounded like ordinary people enacting extraordinary mayhem and crime.

Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as the Penguin, now transformed into a Al Capone-like, mob enforcer.

Paul Dano brings an insanely childish glee and energy to the Riddler, now reimagined as a masked political anaracharist and serial killer modeled on the horrific Zodiac Killer.

Generating incel energy, Dano’s Riddler finds sympathy and followers from frustrated, disenfranchised young men, who aid the Riddler in his grand scheme to drown the entire city by exploding the sea wall around Gotham city.

It shows the all-too real dangers that social media brings when it unites people, unhinged by the frustrations of modern social and economic decay.

As he confronts the Riddler, now contained in Arkham’s prison, Bruce realizes he and the Riddler are essentially both sides of the same coin. Both are orphans. But while Bruce benefited from the security of his family’s wealth, the Riddler, like the many at the city’s main orphanage, suffered from the fall-out of financial support, promised by the Waynes, but never delivered.

They are both men struggling with mental health issues. Both are crippled and unhinged, respectively, by Imposter Syndrome.

But one has been sustained, the other has been neglected and left to grow into a monstrosity.

But this is not the first epiphany Bruce learns. Throughout the story, he comes self-aware that he is part of the problem. His apathy only aggravates the repercussions of his unchecked capitalism.

But it’s the mundane corruption that makes this Batman story hit harder than most.

It’s the grey morality of the police force, the darker side of Gotham’s political players, as well as the mundane humanity found in these “villains”. They’re not so much villains, but simply people corrupted by greed and a dark world closing in on themselves.

It makes us question if we, too, are part of the system and play into it through choice or apathy.

The score usually tells us what kind of Batman we will face.

Giachinno’s score, molded from heavier swells of dark Romanticism of Beethoven/Verdi and modern urgency of Shostakovich, is laced with warping Schubert’s Ave Maria into a doomer refrain, and using, of all things, Nirvana’s iconic, “Something In The Way”, into a folding theme of Bruce’s beginning and end of this one journey.

The heavy thuds of Nirvana’s signature Grunge match well with the grimy bleakness of Gotham- and Bruce’s numbing depression.

Bruce has learned to let go his obsession with vengeance, and better himself to serve Gotham.

In the end, he’s determined to leave behind the sins of his father and set out to be part of the solution.

The end is not so much a conclusion, but the launching pad for Bruce’s longer journey as an enacter of justice and hope.

And perhaps, as he watches Selina take her own road, there’s room for her too, on his journey. Just further down the road, though.

I confess, for years, I was a Batman hater. Gasp, I know, Goth that I am.

But I could never get into the character of Bruce Wayne as others could.

He seemed unrelatable, too much of an extreme superhero of a human trying too hard with too much going for him. He felt flat, arrogant, too dogmatic.

But in the film, this stripped and exposed rawness delivered by Reeves and Pattinson, Bruce became an insecure, angry, uncertain millennial. I could see myself in much of Bruce.

This is a 30 year old —he lived through the 90’s, experienced the digital boom, and probably misses the taste of REAL Blue Raspberry from 2002.

He’s sleep-deprived and burnt-out on digitization.

Numbed with depression and apathy, disgusted with society and the powers holding said society, he’s like us- a person who hobbles a crude network of his own work and defiant drive.

And who loves hard rock and eyeshadow too much, too.

Yep — Bruce’s definitely one of us.