A spirited adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s famous novel (itself loosely based on the life of Gauguin), Lewin’s debut feature clearly announces the signature pre-occupation that will carry across all of his films: the incompatibility of the artistic impulse and bourgeois mores. Charles Strickland is a respectable London stockbroker until he rejects his safe, comfortable life to become a painter and relocates to Tahiti. It is easy to see Strickland’s change of life as a parallel to Lewin's career shift from studio executive to director of a string of boldly eccentric films. Sanders plays the painter as a heartless louse but a brilliant artist, a contradiction that is the leitmotif of the actor’s other roles for Lewin.