‘Nasty’ Review: Ilie Năstase Pop Doc Is An Ace, But How Halcyon Were Those Days?
Game, set, and match for Tudor Giurgiu, Cristian Pascariu, and Tudor D. Popescu, who co-direct Nasty, a pleasingly hagiographic portrait of Romanian tennis icon Ilie Năstase. What fun tennis must have been in the 1970s, as it was on the turn from a knockabout sport into the sharp-footed profession it is today. Năstase and his contemporaries brought finesse and genius to the game, but tennis hadn’t yet been fully corrupted by corporate greed and mechanical elite athleticism. These players were hardworking and hard-partying in equal measure, and Năstase was a key ringleader for the frivolity, dating models, and canoodling on the mattresses at Studio 54.