THE RECEPTION **1/2

(two and a half stars)

TERRIFICALLY acted and beautifully shot on digital video – in just eight days on a $5,000 budget in filmmaker John G. Young’s upstate home – “The Reception” is in many ways quite an indie accomplishment.

This clever, racially and sexually provocative variation on “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” centers on a tippling Frenchwoman (Pamela Holden Stewart) and her life’s companion, a gentle painter (Wayne Lamont Sims) who endures a great deal of abuse from her.

But their respective frustrations boil over with the arrival of the woman’s estranged daughter (Margaret Burkwit), from a long-ended marriage and her new husband (Darien Sills-Evan).

The bridegroom, like the painter, is black and gay – and inevitably forms a romantic bond with the older man.

Despite the contrivance over the situation, which sometimes seems more like a play than a movie, Young makes every moment, as well as every dollar, count.

Running time: 75 minutes. Not rated (sex, profanity). At the Quad, 13th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues.