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An heated discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it for too long. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode series is based on Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the locals especially appreciate his puritanical approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who profit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky sold by the unsettling store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, providing a performance of rare unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive based on local folklore that bears might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of humans. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters in a fable – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, exist the many tonally jarring moments where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, maybe to protect the calm, perhaps to protect one of their own. The clergyman is intent on establishing the opposite, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.