LOS ANGELES: Amy Adams didn’t connect with the character of Margaret Keane when she first read the script for “Big Eyes.”

She cannot remember whether it was right before or right after she’d given birth to her daughter, but for Adams, who was determined to play more confident characters after she got a taste of one in “The Fighter,” the story looked to her like victimization. But then she read it again, later, and everything came into focus.

“Big Eyes,” which opened Thursday, tells the almost unbelievable true story of one of the most commercial art movements in recent history and the deep fraud that lingered below the surface.

Popular tiny waifs with big eyes were credited at the time to Walter Keane (played by Christoph Waltz), who amassed enormous wealth and notoriety. It was later revealed the paintings were the work of his wife, Margaret, who participated in the deception for decades for her own complex reasons.