Given a set E in a complex space and a point p in E, there is a unique smallest complex-analytic germ containing the germ E_p, called the holomorphic closure of E at p. The variation of holomorphic closure along E may be regarded as a measure of how much the set E is 'twisted' from the point of view of the ambient complex structure. Of particular interest is the situation when E is real-analytic (or, more generally, semianalytic). In this talk, we will explain the relevance of holomorphic closure to the so-called CR geometry (a branch of modern complex analysis). We will also discuss the possibility of taming the holomorphic closure structure and its particularly nice behaviour on arc-symmetric semialgebraic sets.