To Cook a Bear Review: This Silly Historical Crime Drama Resembles A Bear-Focused Detective Series

A intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after someone asked a query to women: would you rather find yourself stranded in the woods with a man or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted divides between the sexes, and could easily cause an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to tell women how foolish they had been for choosing the animal and went on to limn the consequences they deserved for it. This at least enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part series is based on Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 book of the same name (rendered two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, a remote village in northern Sweden, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to drinking and revelry, yet it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis local authorities.

The Opposing Forces

Quickly in cahoots against him are the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially firing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (the performer, providing a performance of exceptional 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 proceed to narrative business. The servant from the doctor’s house, the character Hilda (the actress), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is completely absent. Gossip and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a slightly peculiar show. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows suspicion and bias and grim legends flourish from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids romanticise the tough existence led by the residents, where violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, rationality and faith, virtue and wickedness escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – preventing the whole thing truly coming to life.

Stylistic Shifts

Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances where the clergyman’s skill in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur in hay barns like a combined the Belgian detective and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that, yes, it was clearly dried blood on the site), before announcing his newest conclusion and extracting a body from a bog.

Clashing Agendas

The local leaders are determined demonstrating that Hilda met her end by a bear, perhaps to protect the calm, perhaps to shield one of their own. The pastor is intent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so rapidly accumulates supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance get strained. At its best, the series is reminiscent of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the opposing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to the earlier query: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear streams on Disney+ now.