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A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis if you thought on it for too long. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they merited for that choice. This at minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from among whom hails the pastor’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him are the lawman Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woods spread, yet the clergyman holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully coming to life.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined proving that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the proof so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and religion. At its worst, it’s more like a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.