‘Big Eyes’ trailer shows a different kind of Tim Burton gaze

“So, who is the artist?” someone asks Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz at the end of the new trailer for Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes.”

It’s a question the film deals with literally and in other ways, according to the new spot, which hit the Web on Friday ahead of the film’s scheduled Christmas Day release by the Weinstein Co.

The trailer furnishes much of the narrative information from the fact-based film set in the mid-20th century. A single mother in San Francisco named Margaret (Adams) paints portraits large and small of waifish girls, the subjects distinguished by their abnormally large, puppy-dog eyes. Into Margaret’s life walks Walter Keane (Waltz), who sweeps her off her feet -- and has a business plan to mass produce the paintings that involves, among other things, stealing credit for her work. Fireworks and eventually a courtroom showdown ensue.

Judging by the story and the trailer, the piece appears to be an Oscar showcase for Adams, who has been nominated in each of the last two years but not won in either. Waltz seems to be in fine form doing what he does best, usually for Quentin Tarantino -- the unctuous charmer who’s out for himself more than anyone else.

The film appears to be a lot more straightforward and grounded than some of Burton’s best-known work -- nothing oddball or supernatural here -- though we’re sure the dark auteur will make good of the haunting images from the paintings themselves. The writers are also the same people who worked with Burton on “Ed Wood,” so expect some favorite Burton themes -- a movie about an offbeat artist, from one of America’s better examples of same.

Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT