Beartown (Bjornstad) on HBO

[TruthBTold]

Beartown (Bjornstad) on HBO is a Swedish limited series (5 episodes). It concerns some rather weighty issues such as sexual abuse, the psychological mistreatment of children by parents, about a retired NHL player and his family who move back to his small hometown from Canada so that he can whip the town's hockey league back into shape. The new coach's family includes a beautiful 17 y.o. girl. Both the town and the league have been on the down swing and need the money from an enhanced team to build a new hockey arena. The team's sponsor and the new coach have always had problems with each other but the coach realizes that he has to work with him for a number of reasons. First, the sponsor basically funds the hockey team. Second, the sponsor's son (who happens to be handsome and most popular guy in town) has the potential to be the team's star player. Last, both family's homes basically border each other so that it will very difficult to avoid one another.

I have just seen the first two episodes. The acting is uniformly good. I liked that the story adequately set up the relationships between the characters that will carry forward to the other episodes. I will have to see whether there is a major twist and turn in the latter part of the series because so far things have been fairly routine in these kinds of dramas. There was one small twist that I was not expecting and will have to see if it becomes a major concern. Also for those who care one way or another, because it is a Swedish production it is subtitled which are provided.

[+ tassojunior]

Beartown (Bjornstad) on HBO is a Swedish limited series (5 episodes). It concerns some rather weighty issues such as sexual abuse, the psychological mistreatment of children by parents, about a retired NHL player and his family who move back to his small hometown from Canada so that he can whip the town's hockey league back into shape. The new coach's family includes a beautiful 17 y.o. girl. Both the town and the league have been on the down swing and need the money from an enhanced team to build a new hockey arena. The team's sponsor and the new coach have always had problems with each other but the coach realizes that he has to work with him for a number of reasons. First, the sponsor basically funds the hockey team. Second, the sponsor's son (who happens to be handsome and most popular guy in town) has the potential to be the team's star player. Last, both family's homes basically border each other so that it will very difficult to avoid one another.

I have just seen the first two episodes. The acting is uniformly good. I liked that the story adequately set up the relationships between the characters that will carry forward to the other episodes. I will have to see whether there is a major twist and turn in the latter part of the series because so far things have been fairly routine in these kinds of dramas. There was one small twist that I was not expecting and will have to see if it becomes a major concern. Also for those who care one way or another, because it is a Swedish production it is subtitled which are provided.

I've been watching the mini-series too and I hate how HBO only releases an episode a week. The first two seemed a little slow but the last 3 are all about the rape of the coach's daughter by the team's star at the end of episode 2. Won't be pleasant I imagine.

 

The same author has another novel made into a very enjoyable Swedish movie on Amazon Prime; "A Man Called Ove" .

[TruthBTold]

Spoiler (sort of). ***

I was not sure why they made the best friend of rapist gay. I understand that he was in love with him but the best friend had not witnessed anything and thus had not withheld anything. Perhaps I am missing something. When the gay twist was first put into the story at the very beginning I thought it would actually go somewhere. But it really doesn't.