Trying to build a lockdown drama around “What we learned” during the Pandemic — about outselves, our racial divide, our “privilege” and our empathy — would be a daunting task for anybody.

As yet, virtually no one’s quite gotten their arms all the way around it. “The Same Storm” came the closest, a film by one of our most’s empathetic filmmakers, Peter Hedges.

So there’s no shame in trying and failing. But Daniel Holland’s “Moon Students” opens its arms wider and wider…and trips, stumbles and exasperates as it does.

A bitter college professor (Nicholas Thurkettle) takes out his utterly-exhausted patience on two disorganized, unprepared students who botch their presentation on what turns out to be the last day of classes at L.A. Coastal College before COVID shuts the school down.

Ethan Cole dismisses Lita (Sydney Carvill) and Antonio (Eddie Navaro) with extreme prejudice. Antonio doesn’t take it well, and seems to go all punk on Cole’s “My first name is either Mister or Professor” attitude

A dean (Rachanee Lumayno) tries to make peace. As an assault was involved, the fact that she doesn’t toss the kid and/or call the cops says something.

Antonio is encouraged to drop out, the struggling professor teaches the remaining students remotely, and Antonio’s relationship with Lita deteriorates as he drinks and breaks quarantine, drives them to San Diego to “hang with my homies” and basically makes us wonder what Lita sees in him.

It’s a movie of long and somewhat inane monologues, starting with the bookish pal D’Andre’s (B.A. Tobin) San Diego soliloquy mashing up “Hamlet” with Lennie from “Of Mice and Men.”

Professor Cole’s obsession with the near-run thing that was the Apollo 11 Moon landing is his anaology for what he’s hoping for from his students, “American exceptionalism” of a sort, overcoming long odds to achieve greatness.

We’re a long way from that peak moment, the movie suggests. And maybe the white folks who mythologize should get a clue.

Lita is of the opinion that students’ struggle and back-stories are worth considering in how you treat them. What really happened in that office that last day of class?

Everybody deals with loss, before and during COVID. And everybody’s kind of asking for “one true thing” out of their human connections.

“Moon Students” has a couple of nice locations and a few theatrical scenes and moments in scenes. It’s collected awards from some lesser known festivals.

The players don’t embarrass themselves, but don’t really move us when they’re supposed to. The script? Kind of a collage of impressions and feelings about America at its peak — July, 1969 — and during the pandemic and after.

I found it pretentious in those moments where it wasn’t subjecting the viewer to some banality being passed off as insight, or some racial epiphany about John Sayles’ labor movement classic film, “Matewan,” with one of them mispronouncing the title.

These “Moon Students” missed their Moon shot, and not by a little. By a lot.

Rating: unrated, alcohol abuse, some profanity

Cast: Sydney Carvill, Nicholas Thurkettle, Eddie Navarro, Nicholas Heard, Rachanee Lumayno and B.A. Tobin

Credits: Scripted and directed by Daniel Holland. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:49