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An heated debate lately went viral on social media, after someone asked the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and was likely to induce a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering on it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell females how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they merited for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.

Portraying the Scenario

The Bear-Cooking Tale skillfully dramatises this clever small premise. The six-part series is based from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It follows the struggles of a pastor (the lead actor) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the locals especially warm to his strict stance on alcohol and revelry, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that places him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly collaborating against him include the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed early on dismissing a recently mangled laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community who can be bought with some containers of the whisky provided by the creepy shopkeeper the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes when itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of rare discomfiting power). 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 planted, it is time to get down to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her flight and animal scratches upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating beast roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that allows distrust and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of nature or people, always looms on the edges, waiting to erupt. Yet the personas rarely become beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and vengeance, logic and faith, good and wickedness intensify, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are numerous tonally jarring instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds like a combined Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (none of whom had to lick a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda was killed by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is intent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates in his favour that once more the show’s credibility 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 competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it does seem to offer the response to that debated question: “Ladies, take the bear.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.