I actually liked Babel quite a bit when it came out though but that has dropped over time, it does feel a bid heavy handed in the approach though it did make me a fan of Rinko Kikuchi
This does feel a lot more natural to me, maybe partly it is a world that I recognise quite well. I’ve spent a lot of time in Thailand as well as worked there for a bit less than a year. So it is easy to recognise the different type of people you casually see here, sometimes in a disturbing way. Also, it is very common in this part of the world that middle class households have “ya ya’s” ie, domestic help/nanny from the Philippines. Economic changes have caused a shift away from Philippines, so not it is more likely they are from Indonesia or Myanmar
Mammoth
Also, the elephant ride, while exactly what a hypocritical westerner, who previously thought they'd had a "moment" with such a shackled creature, is spot-on as far as what would actually happen, still made me cringe. Not cringe as in bad filmmaking, just cringe as in, damn, that is really what this dude would do.
I sometimes think the lense you watch through is a bit too clouded. The exploitation of elephants in Thailand always put a bad taste in my mouth and I never wanted to feed the market. But you know who are usually fascinated by them and go on elephant rides? Pretty much everybody but the Thai unless they are making the money doing it. Maybe I use to seeing more Chinese, Japanese, SEAsian not just western that would all do the same thing.
I’ve not really known westerners here with live in domestic help that certainly a lot of locals. Many are in similar situations, often have left their child in the care of the grandmother while they work to overseas so that their child will have a better life. This is all too familiar.
One of the better local films around the theme of having domestic help
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2901736/