Björnstad

Beartown, the 5-episode Swedish mini-series adapted from Fredrik Backman's acclaimed novel, is an emotionally charged winter drama set in a struggling small town where ice hockey is more than just a sport-it's a way of life. With its atmospheric northern setting, the series kicks off with the arrival of Peter, a former NHL star, and his family, as he attempts to revive the local junior hockey team.

From the very first episode, Beartown sets a moody, snow-drenched tone that contrasts sharply with the explosive human drama unfolding beneath. The Series weaves themes of ambition, masculinity, and loyalty, all set against a sport that becomes a crucible for deeper tensions. While its "soap opera" storytelling style-jam-packed with character dynamics and emotional stakes-is valuable, it delayed its central plotline until late in the game.

Despite some pacing issues and a polarising conclusion, Beartown remains a worthwhile watch. It's gripping, haunting, and-though not a perfect sports drama or literary adaptation-it manages to strike a chord; just don't expect a typical feel-good hockey tale.

The series very powerfully captures how toxic masculinity can permeate through a small town and destroy lives, but is an absolute travesty to the characters that populated the pages of Backman's original novel.

Characters like Anna, Amat and Benji get so little development I do wonder why they were included at all. The life-long frienship and deep caring between Anna and Maja, one of the most heartwarming parts of the novel, is turned into the two characters just meeting on the first episode of the tv-series, and Anna turns into a complete accessory of Maja, loosing her storyline from the book and any sense of being an independent character. The racism that Amat has felt his entire life is reduced to just a few lines here and there and is addressed just superficially.

As for the adult cast, I have no clue why they decided to turn Peter, who was soft-spoken, loved hockey but loved his family even more, to a hyper-masculine, always yelling, travesty of the original character. I also didn't understand why they decided to make him coach of the B-Team, instead of General Manager of all the teams, as this greatly reduced the roles of Sune and David. The changes to David were the most insulting to me, since he went from a good coach who understoood his team, had trained them since they were little, and loved them as if they were his own children, to an incompetent young-man who was always whining and minging and jealous of Peter.

In essence, while this may be a great series (and it is), it really reduces Bjornstad to its main storyline of Maja and Kevin, without adressing all the other topics (racism, homophobia, conformity, etc) that were such an integral part of the novel. I do think its a great standalone series, that completely captures the essence and raw emotion of the Maja storyline, has beautiful cinematography, and an amazing cast, but, I do think it'll be a bit disapointing for fans of the book.

It's interesting the way the story is told. Little by little. Wasn't aware of the book so everything was unexpected and fortunately it was worth the watching. Scandinavians never disappoint. Well, this last is not objective...

Having read through the previous reviews here the main gripe i find people having with this show seems to be how it isn't an accurate portrayal of it's source material. So having not read the book i'll judge it purely on it's own merit.

Now i pretty much boycott every production that springs from Sweden. What made me give this one a go was mainly how it was an HBO production, a company i associate with quality tv. As i suspected the production was very good with nice cinematography and sets etc. But the best thing was the story and the actors who kept me glued to the screen all the way through. I do however have a few gripes about this show, and the reasons to why i'm not rating this any higher than an eight.

First of i think that the delivery of certain lines from the younger cast felt a bit stiff even if the written dialouge itself was very good and believable. This didn't happen often and the cast was overall very good. My main gripe however was that i felt the show was a bit too short. The build up to the main conflict was great, with the show doing a good job at introducing us to a large amount of interesting characters. The pacing was also really good at first but i thought the second half of the show was a bit rushed. Character motivations started to change too quickly and i felt some more screen time should have been handed to some of the side characters to flesh out the story more and cover more topics. But all in all it was a great show, well made and exciting from start to finish whilst also raising some important questions.

The acting is really good from everyone in this serie. Often when I see a show from Sweden there use to be at least one actor that you can't stand. I think this serie show that we have learned alot lately from making good shows and that we are getting better and better at it. To make this serie a 10/10 show we need to bring back Ludwig Göransson from US to make the background music :p