Molly McCluskey delivers a powerful monologue in a showcase of her character, Sydney’s trauma as she explains her continuous suffering while her torturers are bound. When Girls Play Sports is an exceptional 11 minutes of tense, yet darkly comedic dialogue, that allows the lead to express her truth to the two people that made her college years a living Hell. 

 

As a female athlete in college, her male coach took advantage of her. With the proper authority being the athletic director, AKA the assaulter's boss, Sydney went to him for help and was shunned; the internal torture would continue onward to this fateful day over a decade later. 

 

When Girls Play Sports truly lets the viewer understand the everlasting pain residing inside Sydney as she vents and toys with her “victims”. The film becomes increasingly dark in tone as the end nears and when the finality of it all strikes, there’s a direct justice that is unleashed from it. While the closing moments with her intended victims does pose an appropriate question… could she have gone even farther with her rage?

 

The short fully relies on the performance of McCluskey and luckily she offers a terrific turn as this woman coming to terms with her past. Her twisted sense of humor while telling her story to the gagged coach and athletic director provides a nice tone to the resemblance of the iconic scene of Mr. Blonde dancing to his inevitable ear cutting in Reservoir Dogs. 

 

When Girls Play Sports is a short that harnesses a fantastic scene that deserves the build-up to this moment to be told. How’d she get to this moment, what’s her plan afterwards and will she get away with it in the end? As it stands, the audience is left feeling things will hopefully go in a favorable way, but it’s easy to see this being opened further into a truly riveting revenge story about finding yourself beyond the pain and finding a way forward.