Frozen, Familiar, Frightening, Fearless: Remote Locale Faces Peril in HBO’s Swedish-Language Dark Drama BEARTOWN

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Sports culture in an isolated setting. Too much pressure on young people. Concepts of masculinity turned toxic. A violent act. And ultimately, a profile in strength and survival. The atmosphere in HBO Europe’s intense Swedish-language drama BEARTOWN, which debuts Monday at 9 p.m. ET, only on Crave, will ring bells with viewers all over the world, in ways that aren’t always comfortable. The framework is the overwhelming role that youth sports – in this case hockey – can play in a small town, but BEARTOWN shoots at so much more. “For me, it’s a mirror,” said director Peter Gronlund, in a virtual interview alongside lead actress Miriam Ingrid. “I want the audience to see themselves in the story, their own lives, their own approach to raising kids, and our own parts in this crazy structure of society that we have. Just taking on this project, it was like holding up a mirror towards myself. I had to look deep.” Ingrid – who is 19 now, but was 16 when she first auditioned for the role of 15-year-old Maya – says BEARTOWN speaks specifically to her peers as well. “Since #MeToo, I feel like my generation has started this conversation amongst each other a lot earlier, and I hope that we’re more familiar with consent, and toxic masculinity, and debunking it than, you know, older people tend to be,” she said. “I myself know that when I talk to my friends, we tend to have these conversations. As a young person, when you embark on the whole world of romance and relationships, you don’t really know the rules yet. You can only move forward with your own, I guess, good intentions. So I hope this show kind of helps raise those questions, and helps young people in their ability to form relationships.” Based on Fredrik Backman’s bestselling novel, BEARTOWN centres on a floundering community in Sweden that desperately needs revitalization. Former NHL player Peter Andersson, played by Ulf Stenberg, has left Canada and returned to his home town with his family – including daughter Maya – to coach the senior hockey team, but he discovers the juniors have way more promise and winds up coaching them. Just as things start to turn around on the ice, a terrible act of sexual violence threatens to tear apart not only the team, but the entire town. The series explores long-running family feuds, high school politics, actions and consequences, and the courage it takes to go against the group, especially in a place where the group is everything. “This place is sort of surrounded by a dangerous nature, with the snow and the coldness, which is kind of a way of portraying, ‘Don’t leave the group. Stay within the collective. Follow your leaders. Don’t go by yourself,’ ” Gronlund said. “That’s what attracted me to the story. It takes place in a small town, but there’s so much going on, and anything can happen. That’s such a great arena to work with.” Given the complex character path for Maya in BEARTOWN, Ingrid knew she was going to need all of her acting skills. Rather than having gone through the typical “teen-show phases” – those are her words – earlier in her career, she pointed to her background doing dark and gritty short films, which helped prepare her to extend that vibe in a bigger project. “I feel like Maya, from the very beginning, she has it in her to go against the stream, being her own fish,” Ingrid said. “And so, I don’t know, I didn’t really think about her as a courageous person when I was playing her, just because, well, she had to do what she did. Of course, it’s a very courageous thing to do, and I applaud her for that, but at the same time, she had to do it for her own survival. That’s very important to take into account as well. As a young actor, usually we get these stories that involve a bunch of characters, or female characters who rely too much on their male significant others. I felt so privileged to be able to tell this story in which my character goes through her own journey. She’s her own person.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv