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Why Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry Don’t Kiss in Netflix’s The Union

The Union’s missing kiss was a deliberate choice: director Julian Farino wanted Mike and Roxanne’s rekindled romance to leave room for more, though no sequel was confirmed.
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Mike and Roxanne don’t kiss in The Union because director Julian Farino wanted their rekindled romance to feel unfinished—with room for audiences to want more. Halle Berry agreed with the choice, describing a kiss as the end of the chase. The filmmakers mentioned a possible multi-film future, but no sequel or trilogy was confirmed.

Why does the romance stop short of a kiss?

In The Union, Mark Wahlberg plays Mike McKenna, a New Jersey construction worker, and Halle Berry plays Roxanne Hall, his former high-school sweetheart. She returns to his life and recruits him for an intelligence mission, with their old relationship adding romantic tension to the spy-action plot. Netflix’s Tudum overview describes that setup and quotes Berry saying the characters’ history let the film address, “in a lightweight way,” what had gone wrong between them.

At the Los Angeles premiere, Farino told Variety, as reported by AS USA, that the filmmakers wanted to leave “a lot of space to go.” He said that if viewers left wanting a kiss, “we’ve probably done alright.” The decision was therefore a creative one: to preserve the couple’s unresolved attraction rather than close that part of their story in this film.

What did Halle Berry say about the choice?

Berry endorsed the lingering tension. “Once they kiss, then it’s over,” she said, adding that if a second film were made, “we’ll let that chase continue,” according to the AS USA report of Farino’s Variety interview. Her remark frames the near-kiss as a way to keep the relationship in motion, not as evidence that the actors objected to kissing or that a production restriction prevented it.

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Does the missing kiss mean there will be a sequel?

Not necessarily. Farino said Netflix had encouraged the team early on to think of the movie as “a possible three-movie idea.” “Possible” matters: that comment describes an early way of thinking about the project, not an announcement that a sequel was ordered or that a trilogy is in production. The open-ended romance leaves a path for more story, but it does not guarantee that the path will be taken.

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Why some viewers may read the ending differently

The film does not spell out the absence of a kiss as a plot point, so the choice may feel frustrating or unexplained on screen. In its review, The Guardian likewise noted that the movie denies viewers a kiss and found no discernible reason for it, speculating that it might leave room for a sequel. That is the critic’s reading of how the decision lands; Farino’s reported explanation is that the filmmakers wanted viewers to want more of the couple.

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The Union
The Union
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