Rent Possessed (1947)

Crawford on the Edge: Madness, Melodrama, and Misdiagnosis - Possessed review by griggs

A shadowy melodrama made at the height of film noir, the film borrows some of the genre's atmosphere. The angles are stark, the mood oppressive, and the story shifts between memory and obsession with a rhythm designed to unsettle. What distinguishes Possessed is its willingness to place women's mental health at the centre—less the stock “hysteria” Hollywood so often leaned on, more an attempt, however imperfect, at honesty.

Joan Crawford gives a fierce performance, her character undone much by the indifference of men as by her own compulsions. No one weaponises raw emotion—madness, jealousy, despair—quite like Crawford. The film circles themes of power and obsession, and the ways a woman’s illness could be misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or simply dismissed.

Yet melodrama proves both asset and liability. Its heightened style lends weight to Crawford’s torment but also stretches the story thin, turning it into a slog in places. The ambitions impress, but the craft wavers.