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An intense discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after someone posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in a forest with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable follow-up in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they had been to select the animal and went on to limn the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever small premise. The six-part drama is adapted from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

With the seeds of conflict sown, it is time to proceed with the storyline. The maid from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woodland spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, rationality and religion, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns almost risible. He stands observing broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, perhaps to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the TV version a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.