Don't always believe everything you read in the previews and feature stories. When it comes to "Girl Wrestler," a film by Diane Zander, the clippings miss the point.    If you read some of the articles provided by those promoting the film, you would think it was some treatise on feminism, Title IX or other worldy controversial topic. In fact, "Girl Wrestler" is basically a kids wrestling movie, in which the central character happens to be a 13-year-old girl.    "Girl Wrestler" is scheduled for national broadcast on the PBS Independent Lens! Show on Tuesday, December 14, at 9:00 p.m. Central time.     It is the story of Tara Neal, a 13-year-old Texas girl, who is active in wrestling. The film follows Tara as she goes through a USA Wrestling freestyle season, practicing in her club and competing on the local, state, regional and national levels. The film ends with her participation at the USA Wrestling Kids National Freestyle and Greco-Roman Championships, which were held in Fresno, Calif.    Tara is an engaging girl, who seems pretty smart, but is not much different than most young wrestlers. It is told in her voice, with her own words. She talks a lot about wrestling, and how much she loves the sport. The movie is about more than just the wrestling. It also gets into her relationships with others, including her mom and dad who are split up, her coach, and other wrestlers. In that respect, it is a teen growing up film.    The main focus of the movie has to do with Tara training and competing against boys, something that happens all over the country on a daily basis. Tara is from Texas, however, where they have a separate high school program for girls. This film documents the last season where she is competing against boys in the Kids program.     Almost all of the action is wrestling. It shows Tara at practice. It shows her at a number of wrestling tournaments. She wins some matches, against both boys and girls. She loses some matches against both boys and girls. She gets upset with losses and happy with victories. She drives to many tournaments, but for the nationals, gets on an airplane as part of Team Texas.    There are many things in this film that will get some people in wrestling upset. The film does get into uncomfortable areas, especially for those who do not like that girls wrestle against boys. The film touches on other touchy topics, such as the "sexual" appearance of wrestling moves, weight cutting and Title IX. Some of the positions taken by the film, mostly through the editing process, are different than the mainstream thoughts within the sport.    By interviewing coaches and young wrestlers, some of these difficult topics come across a bit raw, and perhaps a bit out of context. There are boys spouting off in a macho manner about girls in wrestling, trying to show off their toughness and their masculinity. There are some coaches and parents who seem quite hardcore and inflexible in their beliefs.    Weight cutting is displayed in a negative manner, showing that the culture of poor weight management still exists, even if the rules have been changed in youth wrestling. A few kids say the wrong things about it. Tara decides not to eat for a while, trying to get to a lower division. She is shown trying to run off weight prior to a tournament, only to decide to go up instead. One coach at a training camp, Frank Halloran, the former state chairman of Texas USA Wrestling, says all the RIGHT things about the topic, telling the kids not to cut weight, making them drink lots of water, and making himself available to anybody who wants to talk about it.    Those within USA Wrestling will recognize a number of the people in the film. There is an interesting moment, when Tara gets a chance to meet her wrestling hero, 2000 Olympic champion Brandon Slay, a fellow Texan who is at a tournament signing autographs. Brandon is very nice to Tara, but tells her that he is against boys wrestling girls in high school. This view is against her opinions, so Tara admits that Brandon is no longer such a hero for her.    The relationship between Tara and her dad, who supports her wrestling, is interesting and shows some of the dynamics between wrestlers and their parents. Tara ends up believing that her dad is pushing her too much within wrestling, and she badly wants to spend time with him no matter what. At one point, her dad decides not to take her to tournaments anymore, just to be part of her practices. These kind of situations are very realistic within the sport, whether it be a boy or a girl on the mat.    At the end, when Tara goes off to the National Championships, she gets to meet other girls in the tournament who are going through many of the same challenges and experiences within the sport. They spend some time together and become friends. In fact, Tara has to wrestle one of the few girls in the meet, and ends up pinning her new friend.     This movie was in a number of film festivals before it received its national airing on PBS. The director and producer is Diane Zander, an Emmy award winner who has produced many documentaries, and teaches media production at the Univ. of Texas at Austin. Zander saw a TV feature about girls wrestling, reported by John Stossel on ABC's 20/20, and she wanted to follow up. She was amazed by the visual nature of wrestling and decided to learn more about the people in the sport.    In the promotional materials, Zander makes a statement about the film, which tells her viewpoint of why she did it and what she was trying to achieve. Zander writes:    "This is not the 'Hoop Dreams' of girls wrestling. It's not an expose about discrimination in wrestling. What I hope that this documentary accomplishes is to complicate these archetypal stories by offering a tale of one girl who just wants to play, in an environment where some men and some women disagree with her choices and where some men and some women wholeheartedly support her decisions."    Zander is available and willing to talk about the film at any time. In absorbing herself in Tara's life, she has also become much more aware about wrestling.    "When I went to a Kids wrestling meet, I was hooked," said Zander. "The idea of girls wrestling gets to the heart of girls and women in sports. When it comes down to it, the ultimate extension of that question is coed sports and coed contact sports. Dealing with girls wrestling boys got to the heart of the question. It uncovered the uncomfortableness our culture has with girls wrestling. It surprised me that there are so many women that are not supportive of it. I was thrilled there were so many men who were supportive."    "Once I met Tara, I realized she is a great character," said Zander. "She is thoughtful about what she is doing. She is eloquent. She is a great spokesperson for the sport. In the narrative, she tells why she is wrestling, because she loves wrestling. She is not doing it for rebellion, and not doing it for her dad. She did it for herself."    Zander will talk other topics, such has her view of Title IX and "positive feminism" and other such things. Certainly, a lot of that is woven into this film. However, if you spend too much time there, you miss a movie about a young wrestler, her family and the sport of wrestling.    "I think this will make people talk about things," said Zander. "It will show what complications there are."    Whether you like this film or not, it is out there. It will receive national television exposure this week, and will certainly be a topic that will kick around the wrestling community. And with the inclusion of women's wrestling in the Olympics, and the growth of participation of girls in youth programs, these issues will certainly not go away.