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A heated debate lately went viral across online platforms, after a user asked a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing worldviews and experiences, highlighted chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to inform females how stupid they had been to select the bear and proceeded to describe the consequences they merited for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Setup

The Bear-Cooking Tale effectively dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part series is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (rendered two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals particularly warm to his strict stance on drinking and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with minimal compensation as he remains gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of the whisky provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). However, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (the performer, delivering a performance of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (the actress), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woods circulate, yet the clergyman holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the bleakness that allows suspicion and bias and dark myths thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the villagers, in which brutality, whether that of the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist the many stylistically clashing moments in which the clergyman’s skill to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns almost risible. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom were required to lick a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on proving that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is intent on establishing 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. In its finest moments, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• The series is on Disney+ now.