Steve Carell got a lot of free time on his hands after leaving The Office, and even if that exit (set for April) remains bittersweet, the opportunity it leaves for the actor to do more movies is an exciting one. He’s already shown massive range from 40-Year-Old Virgin to Little Miss Sunshine, and apparently he’s staying in the semi-serious vein with Dogs of Babel. According to a press release from Mandate Pictures, the movie will focus on “Paul Iverson, a linguistics professor, who returns home one day to find his wife dead in their backyard. Police rule her death an addicent, but Paul is not quite sure. The only witness to her death is their dog Lorelei.” So what does he do? He attempts to teach the dog to talk in order to find closure. The concept, based on the novel of the same name by Carolyn Parkhurst, sounds like a heart-breakingly sweet one. When we lose a close loved one, the search for answers is one that leads down any avenue that seems even remotely promising, and this story seems to take that to a sort of extreme that can still be rooted in reality. How badly would you want your dog to speak if she could tell you the answer to the ultimate personal question? The film will be written by We Are Marshall and Dear John scribe Jamie Linden, and the production is currently in search of a director.

Dear John never strikes the right balance between a Nicholas Sparks movie and a Lasse Hallström movie.