HBO's Swedish drama Beartown is a stunning examination of rape and toxic masculinity

The Daily Beast

"With blood-boiling accuracy, it takes direct aim at the sorts of environments that cultivate and embolden ugly male ideas about their own preeminent self-worth, and the inferiority of those not like them," says Nick Schager of the five-part adaptation of the novel of the same name, "about a small town whose infatuation with youth hockey is put to the test when a horrific crime takes place, and everyone in the community is forced to take sides. Icy and enraged, it’s a sobering portrait of tragedy wrought from not only toxic masculinity, but from the equally noxious—and potentially more deadly—systems that nurture, amplify, and protect it."

ALSO:

• Beartown is reminiscent of shows like Unbelievable and I May Destroy You, which both illuminate the fallout of rape, while also recalling Friday Night Lights
• Beartown takes the honesty of Friday Night Lights to an even deeper and much darker level