The Prestige TV Podcast - Small-Town Dreams in 'Beartown'

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Katie Baker sit down to talk about the Swedish sports drama 'Beartown,' on HBO Max. They look at the dreams of a small-town hockey team and how things in this small town can still be bleak. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Katie Baker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm joined by my buddy, Katie Baker, a staff writer at The Ringer. And we are here to talk to you about Bairtown, a new Swedish, Bakes, is it a crime drama? Is it a family drama? Is it a small town drama? Is it a hockey drama? Good question. It's funny. I was thinking it has elements of the Mighty Ducks, but then it also, you know, on Friday night lights, but then it also has kind of that dark Nordic tone that we've come to know lately. And so yeah, it's a little, it's like a dark hockey crime drama to answer your question. A dark hockey crime drama. I think if they made a show in a lab for Katie, it was this one. It's on. HBO Max, they've aired three episodes so far out of a five-episode run, and it's based on a novel by a Swedish writer named Frederick Bachman Bakes for the uninitiated.

And honestly, let's start here. What are your feelings about this show? I can't imagine a show that is more dialed into, like, your interests. Yeah, it's funny. I listen to The Watch with you and Andy and, you know, heard you saying, like, why aren't there more shows like this in the U.S.? and kind of on regular TV here. And I really enjoyed it.

I actually have kind of been giving it a rewatch. And I've just really been paying attention to, I mean, in general, I just really enjoy it and think it does a really great job of distilling the sports culture in the U.S. even though it's not a U.S. show, which is one thing that resonated with me. of. Like, I sometimes forgot that it wasn't a U.S. show, even though I was watching it in English subtitles, which I think shows the universality of a lot of the topics that they cover, which is, you know, if you talk to the director, he is very quick to say, this is a show about toxic masculinity. But I think it's so much more nuanced than that tagline makes it sound. And I think it's funny,

but it's also grim. And it has, you know, sort of major. characters, but it also has these really rich minor characters that I'm enjoying getting to know more on a rewatch. And so, you know, and it's five episodes. So it's kind of a good bite size in a way, but also gives it enough room to indulge and to get into a lot of the topics that are unfortunately universal. Yeah, I got into this show because there's a little bit of a, not a drought, but there's a little bit of a slowdown of like big U.S. shows. to get into outside of Wanda Vision this year. I mean, there's some stuff.

There's definitely stuff worth checking out. But a lot of the best TV that I've seen so far this year has been international, whether it's a sin coming out of England or the investigation coming out of Denmark and Bairtown in Sweden. And you're right. Like, it really does, it has a certain universal quality. And the toxic masculinity element is really interesting to me. Because when it starts, you're kind of like, oh, this is drab Friday night lights.

Like, this is Friday night lights without the explosions in the sky music. and without the like smoking hot guys like smolderingly staring at one another, you know, across locker rooms and then hugging at the end. Hey, don't discount the stairs of Peter Anderson. That's true. That's true. But it is a really amazing portrait of how sports, especially in small communities, can both be this unifying and force and a saving grace in some ways and then also be this hugely

corrupting factor in people. lives. And, you know, you can get into the way in which, like, the hockey players in Bairtown. So essentially, it's about a junior hockey team that is rescued essentially by an ex-NHL player named Peter Anderson, who's come back from Canada to live in Bairtown, Bjornstad, as it is in Sweden. And he moves his family of two kids and his wife back to Sweden after the loss of his son to coach this. He thinks he's going to be coaching the senior team, like the factory team. team there. And, you know, a lot of...

The old fogies as the closed captioning puts it. And a lot of European sports, like, you know, their clubs are usually, like, if you go back far enough in their history, especially with the soccer teams, like, they are related to a factory. Like, Arsenal used to be related to the arms factory in London. And, like, there's a lot of clubs like that. I think West Ham has that kind of history as well. I'm not sure if it's the case.

I assume it is for a lot of the hockey teams. But he gets there. He sees the senior team. And he's like, I don't. want to do these guys, I want to coach the juniors because the juniors have this prodigy named Kevin. And you're getting ready. You're like, that's, okay, I understand this. This is coach T.

That's Jason Street. This guy's Riggins. Like all the recognizable sort of tropes are there. And then it kind of inverts a lot of that. And right at the moment where you're the most excited about the hockey, it kind of makes you feel bad for all of it because of an incident that occurs. I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet. Me and Katie will talk a little bit more in detail about it in just a minute or two.

But Bakes, like, as a hockey fan, did you feel like the hockey is well-rendered and engaging for you? I did. I heard you had mentioned, I think you said this on Slack too, like that there's some really long hockey scenes. Extremely long. You almost feel like you're watching, like, HBO 24-7, you know, slow. I was laughing as I rewatched it because there's a there's a scene where you just see a guy kind of like cross-checking a guy in front of the net just the most everyday move and it's given this you know zoom in but not in like a distracting way just in a way that really engages in the game

and it's funny I actually the hockey was to me realistic enough that I looked it up a little bit more and I ended up speaking to a woman named Amy McDaniel and not to spoil my own future writing, but she's a sports choreographer, and one of her first projects ever was the movie Miracle, which I remember at the time thinking, did a really good job with the actual hockey scenes. And anyway, like she was in Sweden.

I think they filmed it about two years ago. So it wasn't right before the pandemic. It was about a year before that, that they were actually filming it. But, you know, part of her job was to communicate storyline through the actual hockey. And a lot of the guys, what's interesting also that we should talk about a little bit is that a lot of the actors are not necessarily actors. They were hockey players. So they were, this is one of their first projects ever.

And I think that lends a lot of the authenticity, sort of the teenage authenticity to it in a way. But, yeah, I like the hockey scenes. I like the, you know, you see a player have a pivotal assist. and you really are so engaged in the people that you notice that. But yeah, actually, when I was re-watching it, I looked it up and that there's one game in episode two that has a full like 10 minutes of screen time. I think it might be longer than that. Yeah.

Like, it's like you see every goal. Like, I mean, like it's the Bjornstein one, the Bertaun, Wendtown winds up winning 2-1, right? Or 3-2. And like, you see every single goal. and all the build up and come down from each one. You see like D-to-D passes. Like that's what stuck out to me. It's like you're not just seeing like someone in the stand

and then suddenly it's like, you know, a breakaway. It's like you see the sort of mundane elements. And I think what kind of really relates to this show is that you see, I've been thinking to myself a little bit, like could this work with other sports? Could this be a show about a soccer club? As you say, like there's a lot of soccer clubs that are structured similarly and have,

similar community involvement in buy-in and everything like that. What hockey has in it and what relates to the broader subject is the element of like the protector player, the enforcer. You know, like you have this star player and then you have an entire, you know, framework built around him. And this is something that the, you know, all the way up to the NHL exists and is a constant struggle and especially in the age of concussions and that sort of thing. Like, what is the role of the fighter?

And it's funny covering hockey, like, that's part of the sport. So, you know, if an NBA player swings at someone on the court, that's like major NBA news forever. You know? In hockey, it happens. People get bored if it doesn't happen if they go to a game and they don't see it. So that obviously then ties into the broader, you know, as we sort of hinted to, toxic masculinity element in a way that I think they don't, like, hit you over the head with it. but it's like very present. Yeah, I mean, this has, in a lot of the same ways

that Friday Night Lights created a setting, an environment, a world where football was the only thing that mattered to this West Texas town and that in a lot of ways these kids were fetid as gods but also trapped in this kind of like aquarium where they were being looked at like animals. Beartown has the same thing

where you get the feeling like this town is like cut off from the rest of the world and that when you watch the people from the town watching junior hockey, which is essentially watching a high school football game, and they're doing chance, and they're obviously, like, their entire week is built around when the game is, and everybody goes. It's not even a question whether or not people are going.

And the people who financially support the hockey club are by that factor. Because of that, they are also the most important people in the town, the most influential people in the town, and they have a lot of sway over what happens with the club. It really does create this tension. And then when they make it into a question about, okay, well, what would happen if these people broke the law, if there was a sexual assault,

if there were these things happening within this town where the hockey team runs the roost, but what happens if the hockey team is actually like a force for evil? Like, you're really forced to reckon with that. Yeah, I mean, and it's funny because you mentioned these very powerful people in town, but when you watch the show, like there's still kind of like small-scale operators in the grand scheme of life,

which makes it, you know, which makes their striving feel more urgent. You know, there's a character who basically plays the father of this prize hockey player. I've been trying to figure out who I think he reminds me of. There's like a Chris Cooper vibe to Matt. Matt's is the character's name. But, you know, he's the guy who's, you know, threatening people and saying, I'm going to, you know, you see his last name on the side of the rank because he's the sponsor and he says he's going to, you know, pull his sponsorship and all these things. But he also, you know,

lives in a modest home and is kind of struggling himself in many ways. And I think I like that element of it. It's like there's still this sort of power structure and this, you know, apparatus. And but it's, it's these very flawed kind of not necessarily like, swore. wagering people that are at the top of it, which makes it all the more tragic when they have so much sway over these young lives. I mean, I was kind of chuckling that right before the, you know, the long game that we were talking about, like, I think the last thing you see before they go on the ice is them saying, you know, if you lose, we lose the arena. Yeah, they're pretty candid about that. 16-year-olds have like the fate of the arena. Yeah. As far as the setting goes, I, have you

you ever been to, like, far out, far out Sweden? I have never been to Sweden. Sadly, you know, always hoped to go there. And over the last year, I've not been able to. I have been to Russia many times, strangely enough. So just that very... Let's unpack that. Yeah. I've been to Magnetic Gors. I've been to Sochi. I've been to St. Petersburg. I've been to Ufa. I mean, I've never been to, like, London, England, but I've been to Ufa, Russia. And I love that. I mean, I think that's one thing. For some reason, we love watching that on TV.

We love that light. We love that lack of light. I mean, it's a beautiful. The scenery is beautiful. There's that sort of one road. They keep showing where, you know, the wooded road. But it, you know, it emphasizes, like, the short days and long nights. And it's an interesting geography when you watch it.

Like, everyone's kind of can see into each other's houses. Yeah. in this little town. And one thing that was kind of funny to me, I spoke with one of the actresses, or one of the actresses from the movie who plays Maya, the main girl in the show. Oh, yeah.

And she is, I think, she sort of is from Stockholm, but traveled around Europe growing up because of her dad's job. So she's kind of cosmopolitan. And they filmed it, you know, far up. They kept referring to it as like the north.

Like, it's very, the town is based in very northern Sweden. And even she was saying she wasn't prepared for the cold. and didn't have a warm enough jacket. And it's just so funny that this Swedish, you know, woman wasn't even ready for the cold there. And I feel like that's also part of the plot, like the family that moves back. The wife is, you know, you get the sense she's sort of a successful lawyer. And she makes these comments about like the people from the north and sort of this failing town.

So the sense of place to me was like very evocative. You know, I'm living in Los Angeles and like there's just obviously like a kind of, um, every day can feel the same out here. Like it rains like five days a year. So my, my wife and I were watching this and we were like, oh man, like we really want to like get at, like we really want to go here like what we wouldn't give for like weather like this. I know you, you probably see a lot more snow that I have in the last 10 years. But like then there's a couple of shots where it's just like gray and dust post industrial landscape and you're like, fuck that. I do not want to go to northern Sweden.

I did have the thought many times. I was like, can we see like the like fair town too? Like summer time. You know what I mean? I love to see it when it's you're at the opposite end of the spectrum. I mean, I guess that's kind of the movie Midsomar a little bit. But like just turning that same landscape into the, you know, the sunsets for one hour and everyone's crazy for different reasons. You know, I think that this show definitely has the, like, there are so many characters that shift over the course, at least in the first three episodes. I know that you've seen a little bit more than me, but the first three episodes are available to everybody, where you think you have like a fixed idea of who somebody is and they change over the course of the of this season. Did you find yourself having to revise your feelings about people like Kevin? Obviously, Kevin's character changes very early on.

but like, you know, and when you watch a sports show or a sports movie, you get very invested in the characters very easily because you can see their accomplishments and failures. Yeah, I mean, I've been sort of watching some of the characters, like there's a guy on the hockey team named William, William Litt, and his mother is like sort of the... Magin. Yeah, Magin Lit is like my favorite character in the show.

She's just sort of the prototypical, like, over-invested helicopter sports parent. but she's so precise. She was one of the things that made me have to remember this isn't based in the U.S. I feel like I have a friend who is her and even has the same

like length hair and glasses. Just storming up to the coach being like, why is it on the first line? Yeah, but anyway, her son is just kind of this generic. Like his character's not even, it's not like he has a big pivotal,

you know, plot role to the way other characters do. But I just have been sort of watching him in the background and the way he even just moves through space, which is a strange thing to say about... But the actors just, I don't know, the cadence of their walk and the way the slope of their shoulders is it just brings me back to high school

and this tangible feeling that athletes have and the way it's manifested in the way it's manifested it in like a really physical way in sort of these high school settings. So watching him and his mom, you know, hanging over the banisters saying, hello, hello to the coach because he's not on the first line. Peter, Peter, hello. Just those little things are so realistic to me that it kind of, you know, when things happen in the show that are very dramatic,

it helps to ground you a little bit to the world because it's hard, you know, there's things, like it's hard to, if the show was a, few degrees less precise on those things. I think the impact of a lot of this, like, it wouldn't work. But I think they are able, like, you, you see the care in it and you see like the specificity. And, you know, I can relate it to like memories I have. Like that party just really struck me. I wrote a story for The Ringer last year about like teenage movies on Netflix. And so I've seen a lot of, I saw a lot of movies in a short time of like teen parties. And this one was like up there with just to how it feels to be at a party when you're, you know, 15 years old.

Yeah, they do a great thing where the two, the two girls are kind of going into the party and they sort of make a pact that they want to abandon one another. But you can tell one of the characters is like, sure, I won't abandon you. And the other one's like, don't abandon me. And obviously, it really becomes a huge plot point. What did you think of the way, like the toxic masculinity that you were talking about with the director? Like, how do you think that the show has handled that so far? I mean, I think they've, you know, they've done a good job at establishing just how, you know, the things that might be your strength or the things you might think are your weakness or your strength.

And, you know, in some cases, there's kind of an introductory scene to the coach that in some ways is like the mighty ducks, you know, like passing around the eggs so they don't break. It's kind of like really establishing what the coach is all about. And he's going around and he says to the biggest kid on the team, I want you to gain 40 more pounds. And, you know, he says to the guy that's kind of always in trouble for fighting, like, you're the protector. I want you to do this. And when you watch it, it's kind of a great inspirational scene.

He's like, own it. Like, I think that's the rousing refrain that they keep saying. And then it's only later that you kind of look back and think about the way that, you know, these are still kind of young, young guys, like, figuring out their way in the world. Like, the way they're being funneled and winnowed and, you know, incentivized for things does come across. And I think there's some of the things that I,

it's hard because some of the scenes I felt were a little boring where there's a lot of, like, boardroom intrigue, except the boardroom is, like, a little cafe, like, in the back of the ring. I'm like, who are these guys? Yeah. There's, like, these guys sitting around. It's like four suites with beards and hats, like sitting around, you know, what would be a diner but has no waitress.

And but those are, but it is that mundane boardroom diner where a lot of people's lives are, you know, kind of determined, unfortunately. And so they're necessary scenes, but they're, you know, they're, those are the scenes where I sometimes checked out about. I was like, I don't even know who's. you know, shipping who... Right. It's like all of a sudden I'm supposed to care about

like this guy Sunet who's getting like moved out of his role as technical director of a junior hockey team. Before I let you go, one last question. I'm putting you on the spot. You're allowed to remake Bear Town

in the States. What town? And do you keep it as hockey or do you change the sport? And feel free to make it like, you know, like your own hometown if it's obvious. Right.

Yeah. Like some, I'm like, can we do, yeah, like the Bayhead Yacht Club sailing rivalry or something like that. No, I would do. I know what my answer is, and this is going to be a great sales up.

I think it would be an awesome show. Yeah, has there been a good? What's the best like sailing? There's like an America's Cup movie I remember from a long time ago that was pretty good with Matthew Modine, but I don't remember, I don't think I've ever seen one since then. Has there ever been a Ted Turner, a biopic or something like that? Because there could be some actually

pretty gnarly Ted Turner sailing No, we're due one. So no one steal that. But I know what I'm going to say just because, and I'll be interested to see if we got even one response to this, but there's, there are these two towns in like very far, as I understand it, I'm going to screw up the geography, but in very far north Minnesota named one one of them was named War Road, like the words War Road, all one word, and one is named Rozo. And there was a kid in college from Rozo, and he was, he's straight out of Beartown. I think his like grandfather invented the snowmobile or something like. that. So I would set it. I would do a rose and they're kind of rival towns in some way. So I would, I would set it there. Meg Schuster will be happy with the Minnesota shout out. Yeah, she's like the hair on her arm just get up. I think hockey works like as I like the sort of protector aspect of it. Because having covered hockey, that is like a constant

question that they're forced to reckon with is like. Cindy Crosby is a body guy plays a role. Yeah, exactly. Like Wayne Gretzky and Marty McSwerley. famously and that sort of thing. That's great. I can't top that. So Katie, thank you so much for joining me. Maybe we'll get together for the finale of Bairtown and talk a little bit about what we've learned

from these crazy Northern Swedes. Thanks so much for joining me. Top moments at Magin Lynn.