Capital

The residents of an otherwise ordinary London street—a veritable cross-section of the city's diverse population on a single avenue—all start receiving anonymous postcards printed with the phrase "We want what you have." At first an annoyance, the campaign quickly escalates with surveillance photos and video footage of the residents that creates anxiety and suspicion among the neighbors—a diverse group that includes a banking executive (Toby Jones) and his neglected wife (Rachael Stirling), a Pakistani family who runs the local grocery, an aging pensioner dying of cancer (Gemma Jones), a traffic warden from Zimbabwe (Wunmi Mosaku), an immigrant carpenter, a Spanish nanny, and a Banksy-like artist who just may be behind the campaign. Accusations are leveled but the police are baffled, even after the neighbors wake up Christmas morning to find the slogan painted in giant red letters across their street. Is it a threat, political statement, or high-concept art project? Based on the titular 2013 novel by John Lanchester, filmmaker Euros Lyn's four-part 2015 miniseries Capital appears to be a psychological thriller but the premise is really just a mechanism to explore the experiences of individuals in a rapidly changing social culture and economy (housing values tick up every episode), not only their anxieties and prejudices, but also their values as lives are upended. Extras include a “making-of” featurette. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)