The Dark Knight Rises as a Trauma Narrative

Let’s get this out of the way:The Dark Knight Rises is a flawed film.

It suffers from the same fundamental problem as many Hollywood superhero ensembles (The Avengers, I’m looking at you). It’s overstuffed–several plotlines could have been taken out completely to no ill-effect. The political message is muddled and mostly extraneous. The story is also completely driven by the need to meet certain narrative beats; we need a character to rise from the asheshere, and so he’ll be cured of his lack...