‘Emi Martínez: The Kid Who Stops Time’ Review: A Warm Netflix Family Portrait Of Argentina’s Beloved Goalkeeper

A documentary aimed primarily at a younger audience, Emi Martínez: The Kid Who Stops Time blends traditional animation — simple and deliberate in its appeal to children — with more conventional documentary filmmaking: archival footage and interviews tracing the life of Argentina national team goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez. This is not a film for football obsessives, nor one that takes any real depth of interest in his career or his story. It’s closer to a family-friendly, school-appropriate version of the player’s biography.

In fact, a large portion of the film — and not only the animated sequences — focuses on his childhood: his life in Mar del Plata, his family, the sacrifices they made, and his early days in football there and later in Buenos Aires. His entire European club career and much of his time with the national team are left to the final stretch, covered in broad, hasty strokes: the difficulty breaking through as Arsenal’s first-choice keeper, a series of loan moves, and — unless I missed it — not a single mention of his current club, Aston Villa.

His international career gets similar treatment: a quick rundown that pauses only at the iconic moments — the penalty shootout against Colombia at the 2021 Copa América, the saves against the Netherlands and France at the Qatar World Cup (though not his crucial late stop against Australia that kept Argentina from going to penalties in the round of 16), and the celebrations, mostly shown through the lens of family.

In that sense, this is a personal, domestic documentary. The voices are his own, his parents’, his brother’s, his wife’s, and a few close friends’. Messi and Scaloni appear briefly in archival clips, saying a word or two about him. But the football here is less about the sport than about the story told in a child’s register: effort, sacrifice, determination, talent.

The animated segments include a couple of whimsical flourishes — the idea that Emi has a switch that lets him freeze time, or a football that follows him around and goads him into challenges. But the film’s best and most affecting material comes from the testimonies of family and friends, and the raw emotion that surfaces when they speak about what he gave up, what he endured, and what it meant to watch him win. His father, in particular, will reduce virtually any viewer to tears — Argentine or not — who has ever felt something watching his son play. He is the true MVP of this modest, warmhearted film.