An heated discussion lately went viral across online platforms, after someone posed the question for females: would you rather find yourself stranded in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, highlighted chasms among genders, and was likely to induce an existential crisis for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to inform women how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled those females who had been hesitating about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty small premise. The six-part drama is adapted on 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 (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to begin a new ministry within Kengis, a remote settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants especially warm to his puritanical approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of impoverished people – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him in direct opposition with the Kengis powers that be.
The Antagonists
Quickly collaborating against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen initially firing a newly injured worker with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who benefit from a community easily swayed with some containers of liquor sold by the creepy store owner Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s creepiness pales once itinerant painter the artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). While they remain – like the pastor himself – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension sown, it is time to get down with the storyline. The servant from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing from the woods. Indications of her flight and animal scratches on a tree get discovered yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears regarding a human-devouring beast prowling the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
A Strange Creation
To Cook a Bear is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the bleakness that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends flourish based on local folklore that animals might be dominated or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the villagers, in which violence, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. But the characters seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, good and evil escalate, emblematic figures within a moral tale – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Tonal Inconsistencies
Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands observing shattered containers and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom were required to taste a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a corpse out of a swamp.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and audience tolerance are tested. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of the author’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by rational thought and belief. At its worst, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.
