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A intense discussion lately spread widely on social media, after someone asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily cause an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable follow-up where some males took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing 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.

Portraying the Scenario

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who profit from a community easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more than caricatures, they still serve as potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict planted, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered but she is completely absent. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear roaming the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which violence, be it from the wild or mankind, always looms on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing moments in which the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to confirm that, yes, it was definitely dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly accumulates supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing attractions and fears presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.