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

An intense discussion lately went viral on social media, after a user asked the question for females: would you rather be lost in the woods alongside a male or a bear? Similar to the most engaging hypothetical scenarios, it exposed vastly opposing perspectives and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and could easily to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda where some males took to the internet to inform women how stupid they were for choosing the animal and proceeded to describe the punishments they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to decide with a new confidence.

Portraying the Setup

To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this clever little setup. The six-part drama is based from Scandinavian writer Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel with the identical title (translated two years later for an English audience). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (the lead actor) and his household when they arrive to begin a new ministry within Kengis, an isolated settlement in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place lacking many joys, none of the inhabitants particularly appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and dancing, yet it is his protection of impoverished people – particularly the native Sami population, from among whom comes the pastor’s foster child Jussi (the young actor) – and his belief in societal fairness and equality that sets him on a collision course against the Kengis powers that be.

The Antagonists

Quickly in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the fearsome mill owner the matron Sjödahl (Pernilla August), seen initially dismissing a newly injured laborer with a month’s pay as he remains babbling at the sight of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner Lindmark (Jonas Karlsson). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness pales when travelling artist Beronius appears on the scene (Simon J Berger, delivering a performance of exceptional unsettling intensity). If they are – similar to the clergyman – just slightly beyond being stereotypes, they still serve as effective ones.

Narrative Development

Once the foundations of tension sown, the moment arrives to get down to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly goes missing in the forest. Indications of her flight and bear markings upon a trunk get discovered yet she remains completely absent. Rumours and fears of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward embark to verify.

A Strange Creation

To Cook a Bear 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 bears can be controlled or inhabited by the souls of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence experienced by the residents, where brutality, whether that of nature or mankind, lurks constantly on the edges, waiting to erupt. But the characters seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles between justice and vengeance, logic and religion, good and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.

Tonal Inconsistencies

Additionally, exist numerous tonally jarring moments where the pastor’s ability in finding evidence and determine Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He positions himself looking at broken milk pots and clumps of hair within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – with Jussi a rather hapless Hastings-cum-Watson (none of whom had to taste a mixture of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to agree that indeed, it was definitely dried blood at the crime scene), prior to declaring his latest deduction and pulling a body from a bog.

Opposing Goals

The local leaders are bent on proving that the maid was killed by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to protect one of their own. The pastor is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up in his favour that again the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience get strained. At its best, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the TV version some years back of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, with its evocation of the opposing allures and terrors presented by science and religion. In its low points, it’s more like 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.