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A heated debate recently went viral on social media, following someone asked the question to women: would you rather be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated divides between the sexes, and could easily cause a deep personal dilemma 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 minimum enabled the women who had been hesitating about their decision to make it with a new confidence.

Dramatising the Scenario

To Cook a Bear effectively brings to life this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based on Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated two years later for an English audience). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his puritanical stance on drinking and dancing, yet it is his protection of the poor – particularly the native Sami population, from which hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equal rights that places him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots opposing him include the lawman the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen early on dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay while he is still gibbering at the sight his crushed hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace easily swayed with some containers of liquor provided by the unsettling shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness diminishes once travelling artist the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing an acting turn of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond than caricatures, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

With the seeds of conflict planted, the moment arrives to proceed to narrative business. The maid from the doctor’s house, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly goes missing in the forest. Signs of her escape and bear markings upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear roaming the woodland spread, yet the clergyman has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.

A Strange Creation

This Bear Drama is a somewhat odd beast. It conjures a strong impression of the bleakness that allows distrust and bias and dark myths flourish from the native legend that animals can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of humans. And it doesn’t idealising the hardscrabble life experienced by the residents, in which violence, whether that of the wild or mankind, lurks constantly at the periphery, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and revenge, logic and faith, virtue and evil intensify, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing truly becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

And then, there are the many stylistically clashing instances where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and discern the maid’s destiny becomes almost risible. He stands looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a particularly unfortunate assistant figure (neither of whom had to lick a blend of blood droplets and saliva from his superior to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood on the site), before announcing his latest deduction and extracting a corpse out of a swamp.

Clashing Agendas

The village elite are bent on demonstrating that Hilda met her end by an animal, perhaps to protect the peace, perhaps to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so rapidly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s The Essex Serpent, through its portrayal of the competing allures and terrors presented by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Still, it appears to offer the answer to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”

• To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ currently.