An heated debate recently spread widely across online platforms, after someone asked the question for females: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed wildly different perspectives and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the almost inevitable follow-up in which some males came online to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they merited for it. This at minimum allowed those females who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Setup
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. The six-part series is adapted from Swedish author the novelist’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household as they come to start a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – especially the native Sami population, from which comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that places him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the lawman Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once itinerant painter Beronius appears in the story (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of rare discomfiting power). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they are at least potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
Once the foundations of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (the actress), duly vanishes from the woods. Signs of her flight and bear markings on a tree get discovered but she is nowhere to be seen. Gossip and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland circulate, but the pastor holds a different view that he and Jussi set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a somewhat peculiar show. It creates a fine sense of the bleakness that lets suspicion and prejudice and grim legends flourish from the native legend that animals might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, in which brutality, be it from nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or maybe, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – which stops the entire production truly becoming immersive.
Tonal Inconsistencies
And then, there are numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate turns nearly laughable. He stands observing broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The village elite are bent on proving that Hilda was killed by an animal, perhaps to preserve the peace, or possibly to shield a fellow elite. The pastor is bent on proving otherwise, and the evidence so quickly stacks up supporting his view that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear is reminiscent of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, through its portrayal of the competing allures and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Still, it does seem to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series is on Disney+ now.
