Sergio looks back over the changes in Cuba, from the Cuban Revolution to the missile crisis, the effect of living in what he calls an underdeveloped country, and his relations with his girlfriends Elena and Hanna.

In several instances, real-life documentary footage of protests and political events is incorporated into the film and played over Sergio's narration to expose the audience to the reality of the Revolution.

[3] The film was largely inexpensive to produce, as it was made without many technological or economic resources,[3] and as a result Gutiérrez Alea feared that his vision wouldn’t translate to the screen.

[3] Because of the political turmoil between the US and Cuba at the time, the US government denied Gutiérrez Alea a visitor's visa in 1970 when he attempted to enter the US to receive several awards he had won for Memories of Underdevelopment, using the Trading with the Enemy Act as justification.

His irony, his intelligence, is a defense mechanism which prevents him from being involved in the reality.” [6] Widely acclaimed as one of the best films of its nation and of its era in terms of bringing together art and politics, and described by John King as 'the most interesting exploration of the problem in any cultural medium'.

[1] Many American critics were "suitably impressed by the film as a stylistic tour de force as well as a subtle and complex portrait of an uncommitted intellectual from a bourgeois background swept up in a vortex of revolutionary change and the threat of nuclear extinction at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"[8] In an interview with Cineaste Magazine in 1977, Gutiérrez Alea is quoted saying that "Memories was in general much better understood and evaluated in the US because people perceived the attempt to criticize the bourgeois mentality.