“In 2008, every movie kiss had to look like The Notebook —epic, fluid, and obviously choreographed,” Dr. Friel explains. “But the Ramon kiss is different. Mike’s hand shakes. Ramon accidentally bumps noses. They stop to breathe. It’s real . In a post- Fleabag world, audiences crave emotional clumsiness. We want to see people figuring it out in real time.”
Indeed, when you watch the extended cut (available on the recent Criterion release), there is a moment after the cut where Ramon almost smiles. He touches his own lips. It suggests the kiss wasn't a climax, but a question. We reached out to actor Steven Plemons (now 45, star of the hit series The North Water ). Surprisingly, he was eager to talk about the scene that once haunted his resume. Q: You’ve joked in the past that the ‘Ramon kiss’ was the most embarrassing moment of your career. Has that changed?
The next time you watch The Valencia Diversion , don’t skip the rain scene. Lean into the elbow-jab. Watch the way Ramon’s left hand hovers, unsure of where to land. Listen to the stutter in Mike’s exhale.
By J. H. Miller, Staff Writer
Why the sudden love for a scene everyone once hated? Dr. Lena Friel, a professor of performance studies at NYU, argues that the scene’s revival speaks to a shift in how we view on-screen intimacy.
To everyone’s surprise, the post went viral. Within weeks, fan edits appeared on YouTube and TikTok featuring the song “Crush” by Cigarettes After Sex. The hashtag #KissRamonSomeMore has since accumulated over 40 million views.
But the internet never forgot it. The phrase “Kissing Ramon Some More” began as a sarcastic Reddit thread in 2019. User @Cinephile_Trash posted a looped GIF of the kiss slowed down to half speed with the caption: “Unpopular opinion: I could watch this awkwardness for an hour. Kiss him some more, Mike.” Kissing Ramon Some More
The first kiss happens in the rain. It is clumsy, desperate, and lasts exactly four seconds. Critics panned it as “performative” and “physically uncomfortable.” Roger Ebert famously wrote that the kiss “had all the passion of two mannequins colliding in a windstorm.”
But fifteen years later, a grassroots movement has emerged online, simply titled It isn’t a sequel, nor a reboot. It is a retrospective analysis asking a provocative question: Did we misjudge the chemistry between protagonist Mike and the mysterious Ramon? The Scene That Divided Audiences For the uninitiated, The Valencia Diversion (2008) follows Mike (Steven Plemons), a neurotic travel writer who gets lost in the Andalusian countryside. He is rescued by Ramon (Diego Luna-esque newcomer Javier Soto), a laconic olive farmer with a secret past.
It may not be the most elegant kiss in cinema. But it might be the most honest. And honestly, we could all use some more of that. “In 2008, every movie kiss had to look
By asking for “more,” the fandom isn’t demanding a sex scene or a dramatic confession. They are demanding duration. They want permission to sit in the awkwardness, to see two people figure out what they mean to each other without a punchline or a fade to black. Kissing Ramon Some More is not a real sequel. There are no production deals, no casting calls. But it exists in the best possible place: the collective imagination.
“Absolutely. I used to wince seeing it. But my daughter found the ‘Kissing Ramon Some More’ edits last year. She said, ‘Dad, this is so vulnerable.’ That hit me. I was trying to act passionate . But the director kept yelling, ‘Be worse at it. Be a real human.’ So I stopped acting. I just... kissed a guy I had a crush on in the dailies.”
In the pantheon of early 2000s indie cinema, few scenes have managed to straddle the line between cringe-comedy and genuine tenderness quite like the climactic moment of The Valencia Diversion —colloquially known by fans as the “Ramon kissing scene.” Mike’s hand shakes
