You can’t satisfy all the people all the time. When Mike Leigh does sad, his critics accuse him of baleful pessimism. When he does happy, they tell him he’s made a film just for fun. It’s no use telling them that most of his sad films are funny, and that most of his funny ones have a serious core — like this one.

It is also one of his most fluent works, light on its feet, supremely well cast and acted and a portrait of a particular north London milieu that’s well-nigh unbeatable for accuracy.

There are, it must be admitted, some problems with Poppy (Sally Hawkins), its central happy-go-lucky character. She is one of those bright and breezy young sparks who seldom stops talking and absolutely never lets life as a primary school teacher get her down.

It is probably being so cheerful as keeps her going, as the old radio catch-phrase had it (Mona Lott’s, on It’s That Man Again, if you want to know). But there are times when less extrovert members of the human race might wish to throttle Poppy.

The man in the bookshop who refuses to respond to her chat certainly seems to feel that way, and so does her driving instructor (Eddie Marsan), a strict disciplinarian with serious issues searing what remains of his soul.

He’s like the cabbie who tells you “this used to be a nice area”, without actually stating his racial prejudices, and for him, Poppy is impossible. She won’t wear the proper shoes when attempting to drive and keeps up a ceaseless patter which has him cowering at awkward crossings lest she is keeping her eyes shut and her mouth open.

The trouble is that, despite himself, he starts to fancy her as the two shakily progress round north London’s well-known L-driver circuit. However, after a spell of sexual drought, about which she is happy to tell all and sundry, Poppy has found someone else and even following her all the way to Margate on a spree doesn’t do the instructor any good.

That is only part of the story but it allows these two actors to show what they can do under a director who lets them fly. Hawkins’s performance is a tour de force and, whether you want to strangle her or not, I can’t see how she could have made it any better. Marsan, always pretty good but generally in smaller parts, delivers an extraordinary portrait of a man who hasn’t a clue about life but is as pessimistic as Poppy is optimistic, until it stings him in the guts.

He is very funny when the situation calls for it and, when something more is asked of him, makes us shiver a little without losing the small bit of sympathy one must have for him if the character is to work. We can add him to the short list of those British actors unlikely ever to get a bad review, even in a poor film.

As usual with Mike Leigh films, there are passages which no one else could accomplish so well, such as the flamenco dance session Poppy attends with her not always sylph-like friends where Karina Fernandez’s splendid instructor bursts into tears after explaining what flamenco means to her emotionally. Done poorly this wouldn’t have been very funny, but it’s hilarious because the sliver of truth it displays about disappointed lives comes over too.

There are other glorious sequences in this comedy, such as Poppy’s night out on the town with her best friend (Alexis Zegerman, also very good), which supplies a bleary morning after but no regrets.

While Happy-Go-Lucky is surely about how much better it is to give life a whirl, it also recognises how, even if you do, events conspire that are likely to hurt somebody or other. The whole is not merely a nice confection but an entire confectionary shop of sweets, which should appeal to those who found Leigh’s Naked and Vera Drake a little too hard-edged. Try it and see.