If you see but one semi-musical Welsh lesbian romance this year, make it “Chuck Chuck Baby.”

An adorable, uplifting ache of a movie, writer-director Janis Pugh’s modest marvel floats by on the glories of a well-crafted pop song and summons up “An Officer and a Gentleman” for its finale.

This downbeat working class “coming out” story is set mostly in a Welsh chicken-packing plant and set to sing-along tunes by Neil Diamond, Elton John and Bernie Taupin and John Gummoe. And one would be hard-pressed to think of a recent film that takes us from downtrodden to giddy, resignation to exhultation as effortlessly as this one.

Our heroine Helen is anything but heroic. Louise Brealey makes her a figure of pity, trapped in a blue smock all-female assembly line and a loveless marriage to a lout (Celyn Jones) who keeps his young, thin cartoon of a baby mama (Emily Fairn) under the same roof, which he doesn’t pay for. That leaves Helen to care for his dying mother Gwen (Sorcha Cusack).

Helen’s closest co-workers (Bevery Rudd, Cat Simmons, Emily Aston) joke around on the feather-littered floor of the Chuck Chuck Baby factory, losing themselves in song the moment the overnight buzzer rings. But in her car, Helen laments her lot. For that she’s got Neil Diamond to get her through her quiet desperation — “I Am, I Said.”

But Helen’s drab council estate world is upended the moment Joanne (Annabel Scholey) returns. Joanne left in a fury and under a cloud. But now that her hated father has died, she has to empty out his rowhouse, right next door to Helen.

Joanne is a linewoman for the county, living in a camper, climbing the pylons. Rolling up in a vintage Triumph Herald convertible, she couldn’t be more romantic unless she was crooning along to Glen Campbell.

Helen’s unspoken longing is obvious to Gwen, who isn’t so old that she doesn’t know “friend of Dorothy” when she sees her, even if it’s used more often to refer to gay men.

Can these two 30somethings finally make the connection they might have decades before?

With Gwen urging “Helen the Handmaid” to “make sure she remembers you” and Renaissance’s one hit to guide her, maybe they will.

Writer-director Pugh, with the “experimental” “The Befuddled Box of Betty Buttifint” the highlight of her previous credits, makes no false move and takes no unsure steps in this utterly adorable romance.

The workplace scenes are rude, anarchic and playful, the burdens Helen shoulders heartbreaking and the longing each lover feels for the other palpable. We root for our couple, hiss at the villains and exult at the mere hint that love might triumph.

And songs underscore that longing or giddiness, suggesting dance numbers even if the “dancing” is limited to billowing sheets on clotheslines, umbrellas opened in unison or chickens — some with paper messages like “This job is s–t” stuffed in their gullets — flung to and fro in a chicken packing plant.

The Aussie filmmakers P.J. Hogan and Jocelyn Moorhouse used “Muriel’s Wedding” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding” to remind us that love makes people want to sing, even if they’re not singers. Pugh took that lesson to heart, and how.

Considering how hard it has proven in recent years to make a screen romance come off, give Pugh a pat on the back by purchasing a ticket for “Chuck Chuck Baby.” With this featherweight, fun and inspiring love story, she’s reminded one and all how it’s done, with a song in your heart.

Rating: unrated, innuendo, mild violence

Cast: Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey, Sorcha Cusack, Beverly Rudd, Cat Simmons, Emily Fairn and Celyn Jones.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Janis Pugh. A Dark Star release.

Running time: 1:41