An aspiring actress, formerly an aspiring dancer, considers mortality and the end of human existence — but not who will be keeping records once the human race itself has ended. It’s the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were frightened and the disease was running rampant and “the system” itself seemed to be crashing. A lot of us were having these not-wholly-reasoned-out thoughts.

“If the world ended tomorrow, I wouldn’t even be a footnote.”

Just as someday, if the cinema survives, the run of “COVID” romances, dramas and comedies that people made during and after lockdown — limited cast, a couple of sets, “COVID protocols,” the works — will be but a footnote.

Writer-director-star Chris Leary‘s “Footnotes” is about two late 20somethings thrown together in big, impersonal Greater LA just as the worst pandemic explodes. He’s living at reduced rent in the small complex, because he’s sort of the “super” there. Will (Leary) gives Apurna (Sharayu Mahale) her keys when she moves in.

He takes care not to flirt. No sense giving her a “creeper” vibe. She goes out of her way not to flirt back.

Then comes COVID, and a simple “Do you have any toilet paper?” plants the seeds of a “platonic” “Hey,” Im not gonna SLEEP with you” relationship.

As their friends-by-necessity conversations, dinners, drinking and drug consumption (played for comic effect) go on, the topics turn intimate, the “platonic” thing is accepted, grudgingly, then tested. By the time the lockdown ends, they’re both right to wonder if what they experienced with each other merited a “footnote,” or something more.

A couple of moments turn on the charm, a couple of scenes carry the weight of reality, expectations and longing. And then this lockdown dramedy drifts away from “just us two.” As it does, it becomes more complicated and progressively less interesting than the “almost interesting” it once was.

Their connection, the banter, a couple of outside characters and situations, none of it lingers in the memory beyond the closing credits or in my case, was clever enough to merit being added to my notes.

Critics “grade” the many COVID romances like this on the COVID curve, or we did as the pandemic was fresher in the mind. It took some doing even to make a simple “two-hander” like this, and everyone gets an A for effort for trying.

But even as I run quick searches to refresh my memory about “memorable” COVID comedies like this (“Getting to Know You,” “The End of Us,” etc.) there’s no escaping the sad reality that they all ran together pretty much the minute the third, fourth and twenty-fourth one came out.

And most of them, unfortunately, barely merit a footnote.

Rating: unrated, drug use, profanity

Cast: Chris Leary, Sharayu Mahale

Credits: Scripted and directed by Chris Leary. A Buffalo 8 release.

Running time: 1:32