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A intense debate recently spread widely on social media, following a user posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering on it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform women how foolish they had been to select the bear and went on to limn the punishments they merited for it. This at least allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted on Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants especially appreciate his strict stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Soon in cahoots against him include the lawman Brahe (the performer), the fearsome mill owner Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still babbling at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least potent archetypes.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of conflict sown, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree are found yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods spread, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi embark to prove.

An Odd Beast

This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, there are the many stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and determine the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair in hay barns as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The village elite are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on proving the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.