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An heated debate recently went viral on social media, following a user asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda where men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this clever small premise. This six-episode series is adapted on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the struggles of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family when they arrive to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still babbling upon seeing his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and dark myths flourish based on local folklore that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by a bear, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.