Angelina Jolie critic Peter Stack wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." She won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review. In 1999, Jolie starred in the comedy-drama "Pushing Tin", alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. The film met with mixed reception from critics, and Jolie's character—Thornton's seductive wife—was particularly criticized; writing for "The Washington Post", Desson Howe dismissed her as "a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of
Angelina Jolie relationship during this time was less strained, with Jolie realizing that they were both "drama queens." Jolie began her professional film career in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the straight-to-video science-fiction sequel "Cyborg 2", as a near-human robot designed for corporate espionage and assassination. She was so disappointed with the film that she did not audition again for a year. Following a supporting role in the independent film "Without Evidence" (1995), she starred in her first Hollywood picture, "Hackers" (1995). "The New York Times" critic Janet Maslin wrote, "Kate stands out. That's because she scowls even