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 even if it is these very strengths that will make people not want to watch what's onscreen." The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Jolie was named an honorary citizen of Sarajevo for raising awareness of the war. After a three-and-a-half-year absence from the screen, Jolie starred in "Maleficent" (2014), a live-action re-imagining of Disney's 1959 animation "Sleeping Beauty". Critical reception was mixed, but Jolie's performance in the titular role was singled out for praise; "The Hollywood Reporter" critic Sherri Linden found her to be the "heart and soul" of the film,