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An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone posed a query for females: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, 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 in cahoots against him include the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation while he is still babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It creates a fine sense of the desolation that lets distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the hardscrabble life led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters rarely become beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist numerous tonally jarring moments in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the proof so quickly accumulates in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. 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 offered by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.