🔗 Share this article

An heated discussion recently spread widely across online platforms, following a user posed the question to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous stylistically clashing moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.