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An intense debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest with a man or with a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it for too long. There was also the predictable coda where some males came online to inform females how stupid they had been for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at minimum enabled those females who were uncertain about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this clever little setup. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (rendered in 2020 for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, in 1852. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical stance on alcohol and revelry, but it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom hails the preacher’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the fearsome factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), observed early on firing a newly injured laborer with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and all others who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of the whisky sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering an acting turn of rare unsettling intensity). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more being stereotypes, they are at least effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of conflict planted, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes from the woods. Indications of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is completely absent. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to prove.

An Odd Beast

To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that lets distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. And it doesn’t romanticise the tough existence led by the villagers, where brutality, whether that of nature or people, always looms at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters in a fable – preventing the whole thing fully coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom had to taste a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that, yes, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), 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 an animal, maybe to protect the calm, or possibly to protect a fellow elite. The clergyman is intent on establishing otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again 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, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears presented by science and religion. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to provide the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ currently.