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A heated debate recently went viral across online platforms, following a user asked a query for females: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it exposed wildly different perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and could easily to induce a deep personal dilemma if you thought on it for too long. There was also the predictable follow-up where men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is adapted on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 book of the same name (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the native Sami population, from which hails the pastor’s adopted son Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Soon collaborating opposing him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a recently mangled worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a community who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears in the story (the performer, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Plot Progression

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Gossip and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or mankind, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, while the conflicts between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, there are numerous tonally jarring instances where the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern the maid’s destiny turns nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair in hay barns like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (none of whom had to taste a blend of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and extracting a body out of a swamp.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by a bear, perhaps to preserve the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the show’s credibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the opposing attractions and terrors offered by science and belief. In its low points, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to provide the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.